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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 


COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 
AFTER THE RESTORATION 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY 
New York 


SALES AGENTS 


HUMPHREY MILFORD 
AMEN CoRNER, E.C. 
LONDON 


EDWARD EVANS & SONS, LTD. 
30 NortH §zECHUEN Roap 


SHANGHAI 


COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 
AFTER THE RESTORATION 


BY 
JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH, Pu.D. 


New York 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1924 


Copyright, 1924 
By CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 


All rights reserved 
Printed from type. Published October, 1924 


THE PLIMPTON PRESS 
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CONTENTS 


PAGE 
ERNIE ERIHEY eee et ee Mire. ac cickaleg thalighc eke’ Des eee bl Secs ix 
THe DervELOPMENT oF THE ResTorATION Comic 
PEASSIETON GMS cc cfet ch. c's wc otg atte aie ace tion eens 1 
See A STA CANT MPMOCIIIT YG .< cnc os. kiels a sie she oa era's dere elaae 24 
PUTT EATEN PUMA TRUE wl aoo yo 5 ood hereto tata tee el aves 48 
PRA NE Rott TTY CATH LIOCMAR He slack eteeee al ac aba Aieatet nates 72 
THe ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 22... 08.5.2 eee eee 89 
THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE (continued) ...... 121 
THE REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE.... 150 
THe DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY .... 192 » 
Tuer THEORY oF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY ......... +) DONS 
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 
Some Critical Works Published Between 1660 
VEC. D5 1 Un ai gio aly Be Wg CAPT coc ted Op UP ELMO Ge. 259 


Pere eOsnler: CODLTOVOIBY: {a creetcintata etetd sivemsecie eta 264 


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FOREWORD 


THE following book was completed in the Summer of 
1920. Various circumstances which have arisen have 
made it impossible for me to publish it before now and, 
though I have grown increasingly sensible of its defects, 
the pressure of other work has prevented me from making 
any revisions since its completion. 

When I first began my investigations it was my inten- 
tion simply to study the controversy which arose over 
Jeremy Collier’s attack upon the theater but I soon dis- 
covered that this attack was not an isolated phenomenon 
and was led further and further afield until I was com- 
pelled to trace the various influences which led to the 
decline of the Restoration Comedy and the rise of the 
Sentimental Comedy by considering the general social and 
literary history of the times. The present book is, there- 
fore, an account of several more or less separated inove- 
ments in literature and morals which converge towards a 
single point. 

As is usual in the case of such a book, there are too 
many indebtednesses to be mentioned; but in addition to a 
general acknowledgment of the services of the authorities 
of Columbia University, the British Museum, and the 
Public Records Office in London, I wish to tender thanks 
to the following persons: to Professor W. P. Trent, whose 
enormous general knowledge of the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries is matched only by his tolerance of people 
who know little, for much counsel; to my friend Professor 
‘Mark Van Doren, both for specific information and for the 


ix 


x FOREWORD 


effect of his contagious enthusiasm for the writers of the 
Restoration; to my brother Charles E. Krutch, for con- 
tinuous interest and encouragement;:and to my wife, for 
much help including the reading of the proofs. 


New York Crry. 
April, 1924. 


CHAPTER I 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESTORATION 
COMIC TRADITION 


“T wit. answer for the poets, that no one ever wrote 
baudry for any other reason but dearth of invention,” 
said the Spectator, but he was speaking as a moralist, and 
no one who reads fairly the comedy of the Restoration 
period can fail to see that men such as Congreve succeeded 
frequently in being supremely witty and outrageously in- 
decent at one and the same time. 

As immoral as it was brilliant, is the conventional char- 
acterization of Restoration comedy; and as we wish to 
approach the subject first in its most superficial aspect, 
we can do no better than accept this conventional judg- 
ment, insisting only that sufficient emphasis be provided 
for both of the adjectives.” A reader may be blinded by 
its brilliance, as Lamb was, and see only the wit; or he 
may be a Puritan and see only the immorality, but both 
elements are there to a degree seldom matched elsewhere. 

It is by no means impossible to take exception to the 
Elizabethan drama, especially if one include under this 
term some of the later plays of Fletcher and Shirley, 
which, in fact, contain the germ of the later comedy. The 
latter’s “‘Changes ” as we shall see later is loose enough, 
and yet considering as a whole the drama before and after 
the Commonwealth, one cannot but feel immediately the 
difference in the atmosphere. There is much that is 
naive in the earlier drama, but sophistication and super- 
sophistication characterize that of the Restoration. Eliza- 

1 


aeoene® 


Pia 
f ” 
f: 
* 


V 


2 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


bethan plays were much occupied with vice, it is true, but 
vice was still, theoretically at least, “a creature of hideous 
mien,” while the Restoration dramatist, in spite of all 
protests of a satiric intention, often looked upon it toler- 
antly or, at best, cynically. There is a good deal of faith 
in human nature in the Elizabethan drama, especially in 
its earlier period, but after the Restoration such faith is 
almost dead. That society is wholly base, the dramatists 
seem ready to admit, whether they accept this fact with 
heartless calmness as Etherege did, or fulminate with what 
seems to me the genuine bitterness and disgust of Wycher- 
ley. There is corruption enough in the Elizabethan drama, 
but there is also an abundance of ‘“ chaste maids” and 
other models of virtue sadly lacking in the drama which we 
are about to discuss. Here the pursuit of women is re- 
garded as the regular occupation of most men, and a faith- 
ful wife or a “ chaste maid” are decided exceptions. 

The Restoration Comedies belong almost exclusively to 
one type — what we call “ society comedy ” or the “ comedy 
of manners.” ‘The scene is usually London, and the chief 
persons, with few exceptions, members of high society. 
If the country or any city besides London is introduced, it 


is only for the purpose of ridicule. ‘“‘ The country is as 


‘ terrible, I find, to our English ladies, as a monastery to 


t 
f 


those abroad; and on my virginity, I think they would 
rather marry a London gaoler, than a high sheriff of a 
county, since neither can stir from his employment,” says 
one of the characters in ‘‘ The Country Wife,” and the atti- 
tude is typical. The scene moves usually in a restricted 
circle: the drawing room, the park, the bed chamber, the 


tavern, then the drawing room again, through which 


scenes move a set of ever recurring types—the graceful 


oe 


young rake, the faithless wife, the deceived husband, and, 


perhaps, a charming young heroine who is to be bestowed 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 3 


in the end on the rake. Shadwell (who himself sometimes 
wrote very much the kind of thing he complained against) 
described the type in a preface to “ The Sullen Lovers.” 
“In the plays which have been wrote of late,” he says, 
“there is no such thing as a perfect character, but the two 
chief persons are commonly a swearing, drinking, whoring 
ruffian for a lover, and an impudent ill-bred tomrig for a 
mistress — and there is that latitude in this, that almost 
anything is proper for them to say ; but their chief subject 
is bawdy and profaneness.” 

This characterization is but little different from the de- 
scription given by Jeremy Collier in his ‘ Short View of 
the Immorality and Pz Oe of the English Stage.” “A 
fine gentleman,” he says, “is a fine whoring, swearing, 
smutty, atheistical man. These qualifications it seems 
complete the idea of honor. They are the top improve- 
ments of fortune, and the distinguishing glories of birth 
and breeding! This is the stage-test for quality, and those 
that can’t stand it, ought to be disclaim’d.” Says 
Farquhar: * “ A play without a beau, cully, cuckold, or co- 
quette, is as poor an entertainment to some palates, as their 
Sunday’s dinner would be without beef and pudding” 
and the same author, this time in the prologue to his “ Sir 
Harry Wildair,”’ sums up better than is to be found 
anywhere else the aim and practice of the Restoration 
dramatist. 


“From musty books let others take their view, 


He hates dull reading but he studies you. 
* ak * * * ca ok x 


Thus then, the pit and boxes are his schools, 
“Your air, your humor, his dramatic rules. 

Let critics censure then, and hiss like snakes, 

He gains his ends, if his light fancy takes 

St. James’s beaux and Covent Garden rakes.” 


1 Preface to The Twin Rivals. 


4 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


It is not merely the looseness, but also the hardness of 
the dramatic heroes which disgusts one. The world is usu- 
ally pretty willing to forgive the young rake, if he is 
represented as gay and thoughtless, but the absolute bru- 
tality of some of the so-called heroes is appalling. Take 
the case of Etherege’s “The Man of Mode,” which Steele, 
writing over thirty years after its original production, 
acknowledges to be still regarded in his time as “the 
pattern of genteel comedy.”’ When the play opens, Dori- 
mant, the hero, is entangled in three love affairs belonging 
to the past, present, and future. He is seeking to break off 
the old affair with one Mrs. Loveit by interposing his 
present love Emilia, while at the same time his imagina- 
tion is fired by the sight of Harriet, whom I have described 
as the future love. In one act, Emilia, who is a girl of 
his own social position, is seen leaving his room; in the 
following he arranges marriage with Harriet. When 
Emilia reproaches him, Harriet takes his part and exclaims 
feelingly to Emilia, “Mr. Dorimant has been your God 
Almighty long enough. ’Tis time for you to think of 
another.” 

If any excuse is to be made for the men, it is that the 
women are as eager to be pursued as the men to pursue 
them. Says Lady Fidget in “ The Country Wife”: ‘“ We 
think wildness in a man is as desirable a quality as in a 
duck or a rabbit. A tame man! Foh!” 

Another type of character which belongs, more or less 
exclusively, to the Restoration drama, is the so-called false 
ingenue, whose characteristic is ignorance but not inno- 
cence. Mrs. Pinchwife in “The Country Wife” and Miss 
Prue in “ Love for Love” are good examples. Vanbrugh 
has.two, Hoyden in “ The Relapse’ and Corinna in “ The 
Confederacy.” The type, no doubt, was derived from 
“T’Ecole des Femmes” of Moliére. Sometimes it is very 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 5 


amusing, but it is indicative of the sophistication of the 
times, which substituted the highly seasoned piquancy 
of such indelicate characters for the simplicity of a 
Miranda. 

It would be rash indeed to accuse any age of exceptional 
immorality because it made fun of marriage, since all ages © 
apparently have done so; but one can at least say that 
the dramatists of the Restoration worked this ever popu- 
lar field more completely than had been done before. 
Since praise of marriage came to be one of the favorite 
themes of the later and reformed comedy, attention may be 
directed to the reverse here. If the pursuit of women was 
the prigcipal business of life for the characters of these 
comedies, marriage was the most dreaded calamity, and 
that love was strong indeed which would submit to it. 
Heartfree, in Vanbrugh’s ‘“‘ The Provoked Wife,” breaks 
out with this passionate declaration of his passion: “I 
could love you even to matrimony itself, a-most, egad,” and, 
though many comedies end with the marriage, no happy 
married couples figure on the stage. Young Maggot in 
Shadwell’s “A True Widow ”’ is afraid to marry for fear 
that this would cause him to lose his reputation as a wit, and 
the sacredness with which the marriage ceremony was held 
is revealed in the speech with which the father in “ Sir Fop- 
ling Flutter ” orders the priest to perform the ceremony over 
his daughter, asking him to ‘‘ commission a young couple to 
go to bed together i’ God’s name.”” One more quotation, and 
we are done with this phase of the matter. It is from 
Dryden’s “ Marriage a la Mode.” Rodophil is tired of his 
wife, though she is young, amiable, and beautiful. 

“ Palamede: But here are good qualities enough for 

one woman. 

Rhodophil: Ay, too many, Palamede. If I could put 

them into three or four women, I should be content.” 


6 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Before attempting to define or analyze any more closely 
the characteristics of the later seventeenth century com- 
edy, it will be as well to attempt to trace its development, 
and to find out when and by what stages it differentiated 
itself from the comedy of the earlier part of the century. 
Let it be remembered also that to say that such-and-such 
a famous work is the first novel, or the first novel of 
character, or the first comedy of manners, is, ordinarily, to 
display ignorance rather than knowledge. Types do not 
leap. into being full formed, but are ordinarily fore- 
shadowed by a series of works in which peculiarities of the 
developed form show more and more plainly. Thus the 
plays of Wycherley, or Farquhar, are obviously a distinct 
species, recognized immediately as belonging to their kind, 
not to an earlier one, yet it is impossible to say that anyone 
invented this type. “It is possible, however, to watch the 
gradual emergence of the characteristics which distinguish 
it, as they appear in plays related on the other hand to 
another species. Sir George Etherege, being the first author 
to attain very great reputation as a writer of comedies of 
manners, is sometimes given credit for their invention. 
Yet Etherege learned much from others, and his own three 
plays offer in themselves a remarkable example of the 
evolution of a type, the first being an uncertain feeling out, 
and the last a finished performance. But it must be re- 
membered that in the years that intervened between his 
first and last play, others from whom he learned much 
were also experimenting. 

Before examining the works of some of the less dis- 
tinguished playwrights, it will be necessary to define 
the Restoration»Comedy..of-manners.— a task which will 
not be difficult after what has been said. They are, briefly, 
rcomedies depicting realistically and in a sinister spirit 
‘the life of the most dissolute portion of the fashionable 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 7 


| society of the city. The hero is ordinarily a man pursuing’ 
' the pleasures of drink, play, and love, with a complete 
disregard for the well being of others; and the heroine is 
@ woman whose scruples, if she has any, are based on 
prudence rather than virtue. Great emphasis is laid on 
repartee for its own sake, and upon epigrams propounding — 
an elaborate and systematic code of immorality. | 

This highly sophisticated offspring was derived from the 
union of certain elements of the old comedy of Humours 
with_certain_elements in the romantic plays of the same 
period. From the former it took its realism, and from the 
latter hints in the handling of dialogue, while it intensified 
the tendency to coarseness often observable in both. Ben 
Jonson had given a picture of the bottom of society, so that 
we might call his plays comedies of bad manners. Fletcher 
had elaborated the play of courtly characters, but chose 
usually to lay his scenes in remote or imaginary countries. 
The writers of the Restoration borrowed-from both, pre- 
senting a picture as realistic as that of Jonson, but of a 
society as cultivated as that in the imaginary courts of 
Fletcher. Their characters might be no more decent than 
Jonson’s, but they were more_refined. They gave their 
rogues the manners of gentlemen, and, be it added, ap- 
parently thought that they were gentlemen. As Voltaire 
put it more wittily and cynically * when speaking of Con- 
greve, ‘ The language is everywhere that of men of honor, 
but their actions are those of knaves; a proof that he 
[Congreve] was perfectly well acquainted with human na- 
ture, and frequented what we call polite company.” 

The relationship between Jonson, and the Restoration 
Comedy has not been sufficiently emphasized. A play like 
“Love for Love” may seem a long way from one by 

Jonson, but by the aid of certain intermediary forms 
| 1 Letters Concerning the English Nation. 1733. 


Sr COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


(to be discussed later) the relationship may be more 
easily detected. Both are realistic portrayals of contem- 
porary manners, the one of low life, and the other of high. 
The tricks practiced in the later plays are not those of 
ignorant rogues, but of wild gallants; the oaths are the 
fashionable “ igads” and “ stap my vitals” instead of the 
camp terms of the soldiers; and the verbal battles are the 
contests of wit by accomplished conversationalists, instead 
of vituperative battles between low bullies and swaggerers; 
but both are realistic. The element of “ humor” in the 
technical sense generally dies away, but in certain authors, 
notably Wycherley, it is still generally evident. Dryden’s 
“Wild Gallant” has at least as good a claim as any 
other play to be called the first Restoration Comedy, but 
Sir Timorous, a bashful knight, is irresolution personified ; 
and True, the tailor, with his mania for jesting, might have 
stepped from a Jonsonian comedy. Even in the best plays, 
where this somewhat crude technique has been abandoned, 
the descriptive names remain, as in the case of Wycherley’s 
“Horner,” Congreve’s “ Lady Wishfort,’ or Farquhar’s 
“ Lurewell.” 

The Restoration did not, then, invent realistic studies 
of manners, but it gave them a new development by com- 
bining two old elements. Similarly, the wit combats, which 
formed so important a part of Restoration Comedy, are 
also a modification of an old tradition. The presence of 
dialogue which exists for its own sake and without reference 
to the situation, has always been remarkable in English 
_ comedy. The enjoyment of talk for and in itself is seen 
everywhere in Elizabethan plays, even in the best tragedies 
of Shakespeare. But in the Jonsonian comedies, the point, 
to speak paradoxically, lies in a vehement and exuberant 
bluntness, in the grotesque oaths of the Miles, the copious 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 9 


but meaningless jargon of the Puritan, or the boisterous 
vulgarity of the denizen of Bartholomew Fair. The wit 
combats of the later plays are related more to the courtly 
tradition emanating from Lyly, but it is to be constantly 
borne in mind that the realistic spirit is derived rather 
from Jonson. The court comedies from Lyly to Fletcher 
are as essentially Elizabethan in their constant tendency 
to escape into the land of fancy as the later plays are 
essentially. Restoration in the refusal of the dramatist to 
leave the familiar haunts of London, even in imagination. 
An excellent example of the comedy of manners that had 
not yet freed itself from romance is found in Shirley’s 
“Changes: or Love in a Maze” (1632). The scene of 
this play is called London, but there is little or no local 
color. Young Caperwit, the poet, and Sir Gervais Simple, 
the ’Squire, are “ humorists”; but the serious characters 
are not so much London youths as denizens of one of those 
fanciful courts whence came the tradition of polite comedy. 
The opening situation in which the sisters confess their love 
for the same man is realistic enough; but when this too 
fortunate lover finds that he loves both, and invites a 
friend to relieve him of either, and when all this is done 
not cynically but romantically and sentimentally, one 
knows that he is in no real London. Before the play is 
over, lovers and mistresses are handed about from one to 
the other as though Puck had squeezed into their eyes the 
juice of Love-in-Idleness, and manners have been lost in 
romance. The Restoration Comedy borrows the sparkling 
dialogue of such a play as this, but treats it in a spirit of 
realism borrowed not from Fletcher but from Jonson. 
During the twelve years from 1630 to the closing of the 
_ theaters, realistic comedy was extremely popular, and there 
\ are many plays, notably those by Shirley, Brome, Glap- 


10 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


thorne, Cartwright, Nabbes, Marmion, and others, which, 
in the broadest sense of the term, might be called comedies 
of manners; but very few of them in any way approximate 
our definition of the Restoration form of light comedy. 
Studies of low life are more common than attempts to de- 
pict good society, and nowhere, not even in Shirley, who 
more than any of the others anticipates the style of our 
period, does one find realism, polish, and refinement com- 
bined with complete cynicism. Brome concerns himself 
_ almost exclusively with the vulgar, and with his plays may 
_ ‘be placed Marmion’s “ Holland’s Leager ” and Cartwright’s 
\ “The Ordinary.” + 

Returning to the plays performed during the twelve 
years before the closing of the theaters, we find that 
Nabbes’ “ ‘The Bride” deals with respectable society, but 
that it is really a bourgeois drama like some of Heywood’s, 
or even like a problem play such as Middleton’s “A Fair 
Quarrel.” The ethical side of the question (the right of a 
son to steal his father’s bride!) is seriously discussed. 
“ Covent Garden” (also by Nabbes) sounds more promis- 
ing. High and low life are mingled, but the manners of 
the wild gallant smack rather of the tavern than of the 
drawing room, and the perfect gentleman declaims with 
stiff propriety and little ease. The gallant of the Restora- 
tion would have considered one as low, and the other as 


1 The relative lateness with which true comedy of refined manners 
develops may be due, in part, to the oft repeated definition of 
the critics, who said that comedy consisted in stories of the vulgar 
class. Dryden notices this belief, for instance, in his preface to An 
Evening’s Love, and as late as 1698 Congreve (Animadversions on 
Mr. Collier's, etc.) pointed out that when Aristotle said that 
comedy was the imitation of the worst sort of people, he meant 
worst in manners or morals, not worst in quality. This however was 
denied by Congreve’s opponents, who objected that men of quality 
should not be exposed to ridicule on the stage. 


4 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 11 


formal, and taken them as new proof that the true savoir 
faire was not known in England until the King returned 
from France. 

Other comedies of this period by more or less obscure 
authors might be discussed; but they are mainly either 
somewhat romantic like Quarles’ “ Virgin Widow ”’ or they 
contain foreign scenes like ‘“‘ The Knave in Grain,” or they 
repeat the features described in plays of Brome, Nabbes, 
and Shirley. Passing reference may be made, however, to 
Cartwright’s “ Wit in a Constable,” as a clean and fairly 
ingenious comedy of polite society, and to Killigrew’s 
“Parson’s Wedding.” In considering the influence of the 
court on the development of the new style of wit, it is 
interesting to remember that Killigrew was close to Charles, 
both during his exile and after his return. The “ Parson’s 
Wedding,” though acted before the closing of the theaters, 
was not printed until 1664. If the passages following 
actually appeared in the original production, then Killigrew 
was a Restoration wit before the Restoration. One char- 
acter says, “I grew so acquainted with sin, I would have 
been good (for variety:),” and another remarks, “ That 
wife is a fool that cannot make her husband one.” During 
the Restoration the technique of wit becomes that of ration- 
alizing debauchery into a philosophical system and produc- 
ing a great corpus of mock casuistry whose fine points are 
expounded with a zeal worthy of a theologian. Killigrew 
was in close connection with the court and he early caught 
its spirit. 

From our point of view, Shirley is the most interesting 
of the dramatists before the civil war. He has not the 
Restoration cynicism, but with him the play of polite 
manners has in some cases detached itself from the Flet- 
cherian tradition of romance, and real London characters 
of the upper class appear in a real London setting. “ Hyde 


12 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Park” is perhaps the best example of a play of this sort, 
as it is a completely developed comedy of manners. It 
differs from the later plays chiefly in the relative cleanness 
of its moral tone. The grossness of some of Shirley’s pieces 
shows that taste was already pointing downward, and his 
frequent compliance with that taste in the matter of lan- 
guage, in spite of his own evident preference for at least 
the appearance of decency, is another proof that the public 
and not the dramatist ruled. But in spite of the grossness 
which he permitted as a sop to his audience, his prevail- 
ing tone is ostensibly healthy, and in his plays virtue 
usually triumphs and has the sympathy of the author. 

His “ Gamester ” has been singled out for especial repro- 
bation, but at least the Elizabethan pretense to virtue is 
kept up. The opening situation in which the hero, Wilding, 
makes love to his wife’s kinswoman, Penelope, is corrupt 
enough; but one does not have to read more than a hundred 
lines to see that it is intended to give a moral thrill to a 
taste jaded with Jacobean horrors and not merely to arouse 
cynical laughter. In the end Wilding,is hurriedly and un- 
convincingly reformed, in a manner strongly suggestive of 
that employed by Cibber. Obviously, such a play, in 
making a study of the manners and morals of an upper 
class, represents a step towards the Restoration tradi- 
tion; but equally obviously, the new spirit of cynical 
abandon and immorality had not been developed. 

To transform Shirley into Congreve it would be neces- 
sary first of all to sharpen the edge of his wit, and then to 
inspire a spirit of cynical indifference to the carelessness 
and the selfish indulgence of society as he saw it. It was 
not that the Jacobeans found coarseness unpleasant — the 
authors of the low life comedies had no reserves — but that 
they did not draw those elegant and accomplished rakes 
so characteristic of the Restoration. And they did ~ 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 13 


not draw them chiefly, perhaps, because these gentlemanly 
scoundrels were the product of Restoration society. 
Though Shirley, as was pointed out, presented the rake as 


the central character, he did not, like the authors of the | 


Restoration, present him unblushingly as a hero. On the 
contrary, the theme of the rake reformed was a favorite 
one with him, being used in “ The Witty Fair One,” “ The 
Wedding,” ‘The Example,” and, with the substitution of 
an extravagant woman for a rake, in “The Lady of 
Pleasure.” 

In view of the close relationship which, in spite of differ- 
ences, did exist between Shirley and the best writers of the 
succeeding age, it is rather hard to understand his complete 
loss of reputation — a loss so absolute that he came to be 
regarded as almost a stock example of a bad playwright. 
A reference to him in this light in “ MacFlecknoe”’ is 
familiar, and. “‘The Play-House. A Satire,” speaks of 
“Shirley! The very Durfey of his age.” 

A caréful examination of the plays produced in the years 
immediately preceding the closing of the theaters shows 
conclusively that though the Restoration tradition was 
foreshadowed, the plays were no more than a foreshadow- 
ing. Plays of realism and plays seeking to represent the 
spirit of a polished society are abundant, and the elements 
of cynicism are common enough; but in order that these 
tendencies should be fused together into the Restoration 
tradition, there was necessary the influence of the peculiar 
social conditions of the next age. The credit for the bril- 
liance of the plays of the time of Charles and William 


belongs largely to the genius of the writers. The perversity | 


of their tone must be charged to the spirit of the age. 

We must turn now to an examination of the plays 
which appeared immediately after the re-opening of the 
theaters. The records of these early years as collected by 


14 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Genest are very imperfect, but it is evident from what is 
known that neither author nor manager knew just what 
was going to be required to suit the taste of the new age, 
and accordingly they revived and imitated the old drama- 
tists almost indiscriminately, until experience and observa- 
tion taught them how to hit more accurately the taste of the 
time. When the theaters were reopened, the tragedies, 
comedies, and tragi-comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
Shakespeare, and Jonson, were again brought upon the 
stage, as well as the works of lesser writers like Brome 
and Suckling which were also rather indiscriminately 
revived. | 

The first new comedy of which we have record is Cow- 
ley’s ‘Cutter of Coleman Street,” made over from his 
“Guardian” and acted in 1661. It was a comedy of 
intrigue with a scene laid in London in 1658, but in no 
sense anticipated the Restoration Comedy. Rather it is a 
story of true love temporarily frustrated by cruel parents 
and by the unjust suspicion of the lover. Mr. Puny, the 
coxcomb, belongs more to the old age than to the new, and 
the hero actually thinks of abandoning his mistress be- 
cause she seems to show unseemly ardor for him. One 
is not surprised to find that Cowley was not the man to 
hit Restoration taste. Next comes Wilson’s “ The Cheats ” 
(acted in 1662), a somewhat Jonsonian comedy of soldiers, 
a hypocrite, and an astrologer, though perhaps somewhat 
looser in tone than Jonson would have written it, and with 
somewhat more emphasis on the amorous intrigue. It at- 
tracted lasting popularity, but is by no means a polite 
comedy. Some attempt is made, though feebly, to express 
the cynical spirit of the new age. For example: 

“Those married men are like boys in the water, 


Ask ’em how’t goes. Oh! Wondrous hot, they cry, 
When yet their teeth chatter from mere cold.” 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 15 


This is not a very successful epigram, but it is the kind 
of remark that Congreve learned how to turn into a glit- 
tering phrase. 

Two other new comedies appeared in 1663. One of 
them, ‘“ The Adventures of Five Hours,” a play by Sir Sam- 
uel Tuke, with a plot taken from the Spanish, we can pass 
over and then come to Dryden’s first and much neglected ef- 
fort, “The Wild Gallant.” Here a very pretty, but not com- 
pletely solvable problem arises. After a rather unsuccessful 
appearance, “ The Wild Gallant,” which Pepys says was 
badly acted, and “so poor a thing as ever I saw in my 
life almost,” + was not printed, but remained in manuscript 
until after its more successful revival in a revised form in 
1667. As it stands it is not great literature, but in its 
theme and spirit it is a typical Restoration play, and if 
we could be sure that the revisions were not material, 
then to Dryden could surely be given the credit for having 
first seized completely the essentials of the coming tradi- 
tion. 

Sir A. W. Ward in the “ Cambridge History of English 
Literature”? says that the play has no other claim than 
that it was Dryden’s first “to be singled out among the 
comedies, at the same time extravagant and coarse, in 
which the period of dramatic decline abounds; though 
there are some traces of the witty dialogue, often carried 
on by a flirting couple, in which Dryden came to excel.” 
Yet this last reservation is extremely important, for just 
that witty dialogue between a flirting couple is one of the _ 
most characteristic features of the Restoration Comedy that 
was to follow, and, in conjunction with certain other char- 
acteristics to be mentioned presently, gives “ The Wild 
Gallant ”’ its important place. Such bits as the following 


1 February 23, 1662-3. 
2 Vol. VIII, chap. I. 


16 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


are the very quintessence of the Restoration manner and 
spirit. The second might be from Congreve himself. 

Isabelle: (To a suitor).—‘“ but he I marry must 

promise me to live at London: I cannot abide to be 
in the country, like a wild beast in the wilderness, 
with no Christian soul about me.” 

Frances: “I hope you intend to deal by my husband 

like a gentleman, as they say? 

Lovely: Then I should beat him most unmercifully, 

and not pay him neither.” 

To read the Dramatis Personae with its Lord Nonsuch, 
an old rich humorous lord, and Sir Timorous, a bashful 
knight, etc., one might expect a conventional comedy of 
humors, but these two characters are only of minor impor- 
tance and the hero, Lovely, is just the irresponsible reckless 
spark that swaggers his ruthless way through the plays of 
Etherege, Wycherley, and Congreve, or, in the actual per- 
sons of Rochester, Sedley, and Grammont, through the court 
at Whitehall. Already the pursuit of women had come to 

be recognized as the chief occupation of a gentleman, and 
\“ The Wild Gallant ” would be the best possible general 
title for the plays of the Restoration, for he is almost 
without exception their hero. 

The prologue to the 1667 version gives some clue to the 
changes which were made. From it we learn that the scene 
in which the hero holds revel with the company of prosti- 
tutes on the night before his marriage was introduced late, 
so that his principles would be (in a sense the reverse of 
the usual) unquestionable. “I swear not, I drink not, I 
curse not, I cheat not,” says he, “they are unnecessary 
vices. I save so much out of these sins and take it out in 
that one necessary vice of wenching.” 

The two prologues are themselves highly instructive. In 
1663 was spoken the not very witty but clean one which 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 17 


consists of a dialogue between two astrologers; but in 
1667 the play was provided with the brilliantly written 
verses in Dryden’s mature style which begin as follows: 


“As some raw “Squire by tender mother bred, 
"Till one-and-twenty keeps his maiden-head,” 


and proceed thus to apologize for the comparative cleanness 
of the rakish hero of the earlier versions of the play, and 
boast that the author has increased the extent of the wild 
gallant’s transgressions. 
“Our unfledged author writ a Wild Gallant. 

He thought him monstrous lewd, (I lay my life) 

Because suspected with his landlord’s wife; 

But, since his [i.e., the author’s] knowledge of the town began, 

He thinks him now a very civil man; 

And, much ashamed of what he was before, 

Has fairly play’d him at three wenches more. 

’Tis some amends his [the author’s] frailties to confess; 

Pray pardon him his want of wickedness.” ) 


Nothing could show better not only the taste of the time, 
but also the fact that in 1667 this taste was known and 
could be counted upon in a way that was impossible in 
1663, when playwrights were still experimenting. By 1667 
the tradition that the more debauched the hero was, the 
more completely he was a hero, had been firmly estab- 
lished. In the four years between 1663 and 1667, the 
Restoration spirit had been developed.and recognized. One 
hesitates to give special importance to a play as universally 
neglected as “ The Wild Gallant,” but it seems clear that 
if the earlier form was substantially the same as the latter, 
then Dryden wrote the first real Restoration Comedy. Nor 
should this conclusion be surprising, for Dryden showed no 
characteristic more marked than his ability to give the 
people what they wanted. 

The next important play to come after Dryden’s maiden 


18 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


effort was written by Etherege. His three plays furnish an 
interesting study of the evolution of the type. The first, 
“Love in a Tub” (1664), is as coarse as “ The Wild 
Gallant,” but its material is more old fashioned. The title 
is taken from a farcical situation in which Defoy, a dis- 
eased French valet, has his head thrust through a tub, the 
other chief comic material consisting of a Middletonian 
story of the guller gulled at play and almost married to 
a mock widow, while that portion which deals with the 
better part of society is a romantic love story told partly in 
rhyme, with occasional touches that have a certain genuine 
prettiness. It might have been written before the civil 
war. In “She Would If She Could” (1668), rhyme has 
been discarded, and also the scenes of low life, so that one 
gets nearer to the newer comedy and is concerned with a 
series of polite intrigues. In “ Sir Fopling Flutter” (1676), 
the emphasis is shifted from incident to character, and we 


have in Sir Fopling that type of Restoration fop whose 


follies are so polished as to cause him to be mistaken by 
some for a wit. As Dryden has it: 


“Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ, 


The ladies would mistake him for a wit; 
* * * * * * * * * 


True fops help nature’s work, and go to school, 
To file and finish God A’mighty’s fool.” 


But before this last play was produced, comedies had 
already been written which preceded Etherege’s final efforts 
in the Restoration type. Wycherley had produced all of 
his plays. He had shown that it was possible to base a 
play not on impossible situations or intrigue, but purely 
on contemporary manners, just as Dryden had shown the 
extent to which cynicism could be made popular. Ether- 
ege’s claim to be the originator of Restoration comedy 
cannot rest on “ Sir Fopling Flutter,” which came too late, 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 19 


and must fall to the ground if based on his other plays, 
for they are but experiments. 

Returning to glance rapidly at the other comedies pro- 
duced in the years immediately following the Restoration, 
we find several minor dramatists trying various. styles. 
Sir Robert Howard’s “ The Committee” (pub. 1665) is a 
not very successful satire on the Puritan domination; 
Lacy’s “ The Old Troop ” (1665) is a rough comedy laid in 
the same period. Skipping one or two insignificant plays, 
we come to Dryden’s “Sir Martin Mar-all” (1667), an 
adaptation from Moliére, and then to ‘ Mulberry Garden,” 
a fairly good comedy of manners which shows its author, 
the rake Sedley, to be more decent than the respectable 
hack, Dryden. The latter professed, at least, that he had 
no genius for comedy, and in fact his plays are never 
absolutely first-rate. But though they are often foreign in 
scene and built upon borrowed plots, they show the author 
a clever journalist who knew how to employ his powers of 
pointed assertion in those dialogues of cynicism and ob- 
scenity which the audience demanded. Probably they were 
written in cold blood and without enthusiasm, but ‘“ The 
Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery” (1672) and “ An 
Evening’s Love” (1668) are as outspokenly depraved as 
any of the comedies of the time. The tone of the former 


may be judged by the fact that the nunnery is referred to 


as the “ seraglio of the godly.” 

Dryden’s early plays are particularly important as dite 
embodiments of the typical spirit of the Restoration. But 
he has a fondness for something approaching romance 
rather than realism. The later Restoration plays are re- 
markable not only for their looseness of tone, but also for 
their desire to represent the actual manners of the times, 
and to show real characters in a familiar setting. In this 
connection attention should be called to James Howard’s 


& 


20 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


“The English Monsieur” (1666) and to ‘“ The Morning 
Ramble ” (1673), by Nevil Payne, for in them the chief 
emphasis is on the mere exhibition of familiar character 
and the presentation of familiar scenes. The former is a 
feeble satire on Frenchified Englishmen, and the second a 
series of pictures in the life of a town rake of respectable 
birth who arouses the sleeping citizens with his nocturnal 
serenades and scoffs the authority of the constable, the 
latter being a procedure considered by Restoration gallants 
as an excellent exhibition of esprit. 

Thomas Shadwell, whom, in spite of his substantial 
merits as a dramatist, Dryden, by his mere genius for vehe- 
ment assertion, succeeded in persuading the world to take 
for a dunce, produced his first play in 1668. In time he 
became one of the most successful playwrights of the age, 
but he was constantly railing at the taste of the times. 
Jonson, whom he resembled in size, petulance, and self- 
esteem, was his god, and his witty contemporaries his aver- 
sion. “A comedy of humor that is not borrowed is the 
hardest thing to write well,’ he said, and he boasted that 
he had never written a comedy without a new humor in it. 
Those of his contemporaries who loved repartee for its 
own sake he called men of little understanding. He despised 
the “ Tittle-tattle sort”? of conventional conversation, 
partly perhaps because his mind, unwieldy like his body, 
was not equal to it. He set up, too, as a moralist and a 
lasher of the vices of his age which, it is true, he did 
satirize with a more scrupulous realism than did any of the 
others. But whatever his moral basis, either the love of 
representing life as it was or the pressure of public taste 
made his plays coarse enough, and his wild gallants were 
wild enough to please his audience and his moralizing not 
insistent enough to trouble them. ‘‘ The Sullen Lovers ”’ 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 21 


(1668) and “The Humorists” (1671) are dull, and 
it was not until “ Epsom Wells” (1673) that he produced 
his first really excellent play. He was at his best when, 
as in the last-mentioned play, in ‘“‘ The Squire of Alsatia ” 
(1688), and “ Bury Fair ” (1689), he selected some particu- 
lar locality and caught the essence of the life there. Per- 
haps because he had little imagination, his plays seem more 
literally true than those of his more brilliant contempo- 
raries, and give somehow the impression of being fully 
documented. In “ The Lancashire Witches” (1681), in- 
deed, he assures his readers that all the phenomena are 
substantiated by the authority of standard works on witch- 
craft. 

In the seventies Wycherley ran his brief and astounding 
career as a dramatist, and in the much abused “ The 
Country Wife” (1673) produced the most powerful comedy 
of the Restoration. It has not been customary for many 
years to admire the “ manly Wycherley,” as he was called 
by his contemporaries, but as a dramatist he was the 
greatest genius who appeared during the century following 
the civil war. The theme of “The Country Wife” is 
perhaps inexcusable, but its raison d’etre is neither its ob- 
scenity nor its wit. It is a moving drama, the result 
of a realistic imagination as powerful almost as Ibsen’s. 

Since this chapter does not aim to give a history of the 
drama, but only to trace its evolution to the point where the 
tradition of comedy was fully established, it is not necessary 
to go further, for nothing strictly new appears to have been 
introduced between Wycherley and the beginning of the 
sentimental comedy at the end of the century. With “ The 
Country Wife” (1673), every distinguishing feature of the 
Restoration Comedy had appeared in definitely recogniz- 
able form. Its development had been rapid. Before the 


22 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


civil war nothing more than the beginning of the tradition 
could be found; in a few years scattered elements had 
been fused into a new and definitely recognizable type. 
Dryden hit first upon that peculiar cynical perversity 


‘ which dominates its tone. He, too, first laid predominant 


stress upon the witty give and take of dialogue existing 
for its own sake. Working upon the hint of a few 
previous writers, Shadwell first showed what could be 
done with prosaic and literary realism used to replace 
the more or less fanciful elements of Dryden. Etherege led 
the movement for the study, long continued, of the fop. 
Wycherley showed how the familiar material could be 
treated with a withering scorn in place of cynical indif- 
ference or approval. Beyond this, nothing new was added; 
there could be only increased effectiveness. And the other 
dramatists were, in a way, mere followers. Mrs. Behn 
could out-do even Dryden in lusciousness, and Congreve 
could surpass all the rest in polish of dialogue, but neither 
was an innovator. If the latter is the most read dramatist 
of the Restoration, it is not because he added anything new 
in spirit or incident. He simply gave the familiar material 
the highest polish that it could bear, and by the perfection 
of his workmanship raised it to an intellectual plane where 
perverseness of spirit is lost in perfection of manner. 

In conclusion, some attention should be called to the 
literary influences upon the development of the Restoration 
tradition. As might be supposed, a society centering about 
a court lately returning from exile in France, and looking 
to France as the center of fashionable life, was not un- 
affected by the works of the great contemporary genius 
across the Channel. In fact, Moliére may be said to have 
come in with Restoration Comedy, for Davenant’s “ Play- 
House to Let,” one of the first plays to be performed 
after the reopening of the theaters, owed a part of itself 


i 


* 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMIC TRADITION 23 


to Moliére. The latter’s influence has been the subject of 
an exhaustive study, and here it will be necessary only to 
observe that in spite of many borrowings from his plays, 
his influence was not so significant as one might expect. 
From him Etherege, Wycherley, and others may have re- 
ceived an additional impulse to the study of contemporary 
manners and a tendency to greater regularity and con- 
straint in construgtion; but his spirit, the very reverse of 
the bitter and cynical, was profoundly different. Many 
dramatists ransacked his plays for the bare bones of situa- 
tion, but from our point of view (the discussion of the 
Re inatists’ attitude toward life) his influence is ay very 
little importance. 

If much that came from France was too correct to meet 
exactly the demand of the English, a more congenial spirit 
was found in a section of the classics. No poet was so 
much translated as Ovid, and there was much in Ovid’s 
thought that was congenial. Other of the less severe classi- 
cal authors — especially Petronius and Lucian — were read 
and imitated. The Elizabethan age had got from the 
ancients chiefly the sterner side, and the days of Rome and 
Athens appealed to them as the age of strict ideals; but 
the more sophisticated Restoration found a lighter side to 
classical literature and recognized its own kinship with the 
decadent writers of antiquity.\ Consequently it translated 
and absorbed them. From Ovid, especially, it derived all 
that it could not invent of the animal tradition of love. To 
him at times, as to them always, love was the chief busi- 
ness of life, and love had none of the “seraphic part.” 
Congreve’s most characteristic line is but a translation 
and amplification of a well known phrase in Ovid’s 
“ Elegies ”: “casta est quem nemo rogavit.” 


1 Miles. The influence of Moliére on Restoration Comedy. 


CHAPTER II 
THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 


In the preceding chapter we have been concerned with 
a literary evolution; but this literary evolution was only an 
accompaniment of a social evolution. The sophistication 
of society tends naturally to produce a comedy of manners, 


tet 


~e 


and the peculiar characteristics of the Restoration Comedy 
of manners were the result of the peculiar characteristics 
of the sophistication of the times. 

Jeremy Collier and his kind charged the drama with 
having caused the corruption of the times, but as his 
opponents pointed out, to make such a charge was to put 
the cart before the horse, for it would be much more fair 
to attribute the corruption of the drama to the times. In 
the first part of this chapter I wish to show (that the 
atmosphere of the plays corresponded very closely with the 
atmosphere of a portion of society, that their heroes were 
drawn from the characters of such persons as Sedley, 
Rochester, and Charles himself, and that however shocking 
the incidents and speeches might be, they are to be matched 
in dissoluteness by what is to be found in the histories 
and memoirs. John Dennis protested that the comedies 
were but a faint representation of actuality, and that one 
might hear more profanity in one evening in a tavern than 
on the stage in a year. Similar protests are frequent. 

Speaking broadly, the extraordinary debauchery which 
succeeded the Restoration was the result of the reaction. 
When Charles and his companions, whom Trevelyan calls 
the merriest troop of comedians that ever stepped upon 

24 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 25 


English soil, returned from exile, they determined to enjoy 
to the full the pleasures that had been denied them before 
and were now so abundantly offered. They were received 
amid the greatest possible rejoicing, and their natures were 
so little averse to merry-making that they threw them- 
selves unrestrainedly into pleasure and even their partisans 
were sometimes shocked. Thus Bishop Burnet? puts it 
rather mildly when he speaks of “the general joy which 
overran the whole nation upon his majesty’s restoration, 
but was not regulated with that sobriety and temperance, 
that became a serious gratitude to God for so great a 
blessing.” 

They wished to make the time to come in every way the 
reverse of the time that was past, and the sin of regicide 
of which the preceding generation had been guilty made it 
seem a sort of piety to reverse all that had been done; 
to pull down all that had been set up, and set up all that 
had been pulled down; to hate all that had been loved and 
love all that had been hated. The Puritans had tended to 
regard all pleasure as sinful, and they determined to re- 
gard no pleasure as such. The Puritans had condemned 
the May-pole and ordered that Christmas should be kept 
as a day of fast; so the courtiers of Charles determined to 
carry pleasure and gallantry even to divine service, and 
Charles himself ordered that church music should be such 
as he could beat time to. Instead of whipping actors at 
the cart tail, they received the women as mistresses; and 
instead of forbidding all plays however innocent, they en- 
couraged all however indecent. As to language, we learn 
from Halifax:? “The hypocrisy of the former times in- 
clined men to think they could not show too great an aver- 
sion to it, and that helped to encourage this unbounded 


1 Infe and Death of John Earl of Rochester. 
2 A Character of King Charles II. 


26 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


liberty of talking, without the restraints of decency which 
were before observed.” To be debauched was the easiest 
way of clearing one’s self of suspicion of disloyalty. Thus 
Dryden makes one of his characters in “ The Wild Gal- 
lant” say: “ He has been a great fanatic formerly, and 
now has got a habit of swearing that he may be thought a 
cavalier.” 

Sometimes the effect of reaction was observable in the 
careers of individuals. Macaulay cites the case of Philip, 
Lord Wharton, whose father was so severe a Calvinist that 
he forbade not only plays, poems, and dancing, but even 
hunting, in his household, with the result that his son early 
acquired and “ retained to the last the reputation of being 
the greatest rake in England.” ? 

Clarendon? tells the story of Charles having fallen in 
his youth into the hands of the Scotch Presbyterians, who 
made him listen to interminable prayers and sometimes as 
many as six sermons in a row, from which, not unnaturally, 
he developed a distaste for piety of any sort. Of Charles 
among the Presbyterians Burnet says: “He was not so 
much as allowed to walk abroad on Sundays, and if at any 
time there had been any gaiety at court, such as dancing 
or playing cards, he was severely reproved for it.” It 
must not be forgotten, however, that under the Restoration 
debauchery was often combined with extraordinary genius, 


as in the case of Rochester; or with genuine political 


ability, as in the case of Wharton, who, in the intervals 
of dissipation, was a power in the state for many years. 
In the carnival which they were holding, the courtiers 
were but little restrained by the teachings of the English 
Church which they gave themselves so much credit for hav- 


1 Macaulay. Hist., Chap. XX. 
2 Book XIII. 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 27 


ing reéstablished. A writer in Traill’s “ Social England ” * 
says that there perhaps has never been a time since the 
fifteenth century when the clergy exercised such an influ- 
ence as they enjoyed between 1660 and the death of 
Queen Anne. But assuming that this is true, it must, so 
far as the court during the early part of this period is — 
concerned, be understood to mean political influence. 
Under Charles, the church as an institution was exalted, 
partly because the Puritans had pulled it down, but chiefly 
because it was royalist, many of its leaders holding the 
doctrine of divine right in its extreme form, and some 
maintaining that the King could, literally, do no wrong. 
But however much the courtiers were willing to honor the 
church, they had no mind to listen to its precepts, and, 
according to Burnet, Charles himself took care at his de- 
votions to let people know that he took no interest in 
the affair. His courtiers did not scruple to go to sleep 
in the royal chapel, as is evidenced by the amusing story 
of the great preacher who begged the noble not to snore 
so loudly lest he should waken his majesty. Pepys, too, 
has his evidence. After attending service at the Abbey, 
he writes: * “ There I found but a thin congregation al- 
ready. So I see that religion, be it what it will, is but a 
humour, and so the esteem of it passeth as other things do.” 

It was on such a court that the destinies of the theater 
were dependent more closely than they had been at any 
previous time. Before the civil war there is but one in- 
stance, that of Henrietta Maria, of a sovereign witnessing 
a performance at a public theater,? but Charles took the 
greatest personal interest in the stage, and attended public 


1 Rev. W. H. Hutton, Vol. IV, Chap. XV. 
2 October 2, 1660. 
8 Cunningham. Nell Gwyn. 


28 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


performances.t’ When in 1662 he gave patents for the two 
companies of actors, he himself acted as patron for one, and 
the Duke of York for the other. Nor was Charles’ interest 
a merely formal one. The taste for French plays is attrib- 
uted largely to him, and he was ready to make specific 
suggestions to playwrights. Thus Crown (preface to “ Sir 
Courtly Nice”’) remarks on the King’s preference for com- 
edy, and says that he was often commanded by him to 
write it. 

From the court in general then, and from Charles in 
(particular, our comedy took its tone. What that tone was 
likely to be is evidenced by Charles’ character as it was so 
well described by Clarendon, Halifax, Temple, Evelyn, 
and other contemporaries. Gay, witty, polished, amorous, 
pleasure-loving, unscrupulous, and cruel, he was a very 
wild gallant on a throne. The famous epigram which 
charged him with never having done a wise thing is fair only 
if “ wise” be interpreted in the highest sense, for politically 
he was astute enough. Still, on the lighter side of his 
character he was simply the beau idéal (except in the 
matter of personal beauty, which he certainly did not 
have) of the man of fashion of his age. His religion, 
Halifax says keenly, was that “of a young prince in his 
warm blood,” and he adds that in the library of such a 
prince “ the solemn folios are not much rumpled, books of 
a lighter digestion have the dog’s ears.” The sharpness 
of his wit is too well known to need illustration, and Hali- 
fax remarked his tendency to make “ broad allusions upon 
anything that gave occasion.” 

From Fuller we learn that at his birth “ The star of 
Venus was not only visible the whole day, but also during 
the two which followed,’ certainly a fitting prodigy to 


1 Anne returned to the habit of witnessing plays only when per- 
formed at court. Strickland. Queens of England. 


ge ~— air Aree 


. atl eel 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 29 


signalize the birth of the amorous prince whom Louis 
understood well enough to send to him the subsequent 
Duchess of Portsmouth when he wished to cajole him dip- 
lomatically. But it was Halifax who analyzed best this 
side of his character. “It may be said,” Halifax wrote, 
“that his inclinations to love were the effects of health 
and a good constitution, with as little mixture of the 
seraphic part as ever a man had.” As little mixture of the 
seraphic part as ever a man had! Volumes could not fur- 
nish a better comment on the gallantry of the Restoration 
life or Restoration plays. Like the best dramatic authors, _. 
Charles “had a very ill opinion both of men and women; 
and did not think there was either sincerity or chastity in 
the world out of principle.” + 

As in the case of the heroes of comedy, it is necessary, 
if we are to judge him favorably, to allow his graces to 
blind us to the essential viciousness of one side of his char- 
acter. When his subjects perceived the affability of his 
manners, they were willing to forget everything else; but 
it must be remembered that he was capable of forcing on 
his Queen the shameful humiliation of honoring one of his 
mistresses in her own household, and that he hired thugs 
to waylay a member of Parliament. When in 1669 it was 
proposed to tax the players, the move was opposed on the 
ground that the players were part of the King’s pleasure. 
Sir John Coventry asked if the King’s pleasure lay among 
the men or the women of the company, and in revenge 
Charles caused some blackguards to waylay him and cut his 
nose to the bone. But his fashionable subjects forgave him 
because of his brilliant manner, just as they forgave the 
contemptible Dorimant, hero of “ Sir Fopling Flutter,” and 
exasperated Steele because they insisted on considering 
the former a fine gentleman though in spite of his outward 

1 Burnet. History, Part II, Chap. I. 


» 
ie 


Be ges 


30 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


perfection he was capable of complete baseness. Like 
Charles, Dorimant broke the Ten Commandments but kept 
the ten thousand. Restoration men, whether in real life or 
“on the stage, were gentlemen in everything — except 
essentials. 

Estimates of Charles’ character varied much with the 
political opinions of the writer, but his greatest admirers 
could do no better by his personal habits than to turn 
looseness into a virtue, as Dryden had done in “ Absalom 
and Achitophel ” when he wrote: 


Then Israel’s monarch after Heaven’s own heart, 
His vigorous warmth did variously impart, 

To wives and slaves; and, wide as his command, 
Scatter’d his Maker’s image thro’ the land.” 


When, in 1662, Charles gave to Killigrew and Davenant 
grants to establish companies of players, he enjoined that 
“they do not at any time hereafter cause to be acted or 
represented any play, enterlude, or opera, containing any 
matter of profanation, scurrility or obscenity.”1 Yet 
certainly had this injunction been obeyed, none of the 
spectators would have been more disappointed than Charles 
himself. 

The rest of the court imitated Charles’ vices assiduously, 
and his graces as well as they could. In an anonymous 


pamphlet of 1675 called the “Character of a Town Gal- 


lant” the type is thus described: ‘‘ His trade is making of 
love, yet he knows no difference between that and lust — 
he is so bitter an enemy of marriage that some would 
suspect him born out of lawful wedlock.” Reasonably 
sober men, though no Puritans, could not but ery out 
against the corruption of all kinds which flourished. . Pepys, 


1 Printed in The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Edited 
by Joseph Quincy Adams. 


se = ag ong 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 31 


though timid, was not particularly averse to gallantry, 
but he was honest, and could not help exclaiming: ' 
“ But, good God! what an age is this, and what a world 
is this! that a man cannot live without playing the knave 
and dissimulation;”’ and similarly, he was shocked by the 
dissoluteness of the court, and ashamed of what he heard 
of Charles’ debauchery. The famous Lord Rochester was 
an illustration of how not only wit but genius could be 
united with the extreme of debauchery, and Sir Charles 
Sedley, a wit and a very model of fashion, was morally 
so bad that when Pepys? wants to damn a man he calls 
him ‘“ worse than Sir Charles Sidly,” and from Pepys, 
too, we get one of Sedley’s bon mots which might have 
come from a play by Mrs. Behn. Having heard a char- 
acter in a play comfort himself for the loss of his mistress 
by saying that, though the other had possession of her body, 
it was the speaker who deserved her, Sedley burst out, 
“But what ’a pox does he want?” 

Go as low as you will in the farces of the time, even 
down to “ The Morning Ramble,” no extravagance will be 
found worse than the exploit alluded to by Pepys and 
described by Johnson in his life of Dorset. A convivial 
company was at the “ Cock” in Bow Street. ‘ At last, as 
they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, and harangued 
the populace [Pepys says, July 1, 1663, that there were 
1000 people] in such profane language, that public indig- 
nation was awakened; the crowd attempted to force the 
door, and being repulsed, drove in the performers with 
stones, and broke the windows of the house.” For this mis- 
demeanor they were indicted and Sedley was fined. 
According to Pepys (Oct. 23, 1668), Sedley again disported 
himself nearly naked. 


1 September Ist, 1661. 
2 November 16, 1667. 


oe COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


The extraordinary coarseness of language, too, was no 
mere literary tradition, but a fact of life. To be vile in 
language was fashionable. Motteux, who claimed to keep 
his “ Gentleman’s Journal” refined, tells how he saw a 
young gallant look at a copy and describes his reaction 
thus: “A young sport, whose pockets seemed better fur- 
nished than his head, yet had wit enough to adorn his 
outside, conscious perhaps that there was but little within, 
read some of it with an audible voice; at last, here take 
your book Mr., said he, there is not a word of baudy in’t. 
How in the devil can it be a journal fit for a gentleman?” 
Nell Gwyn, apparently, had no objection to owning the 
most unequivocal Anglo-Saxon word descriptive of her 
position, and when her carriage was mistaken by a mob 
for that of Lady Castlemain, she is said merely to have 
informed the mob good humoredly that she was the 
Protestant not the Catholic whore. Yet it was she whom 
Dennis called ‘one of the most beautiful and best bred 
ladies in the world,” + and whom he represents as address- 
ing Wycherley, whom she did not know, from her carriage 
window in language which few other ages would have 
attributed to a model of good breeding. 

Nor were the cruel and unscrupulous tricks which often 
formed the plot for plays unmatched in life. When the 
Karl of Oxford failed in his attempt to seduce a beautiful 
actress, he deceived her with a false marriage, and when 
she appealed to the King he gave her none but a monetary 
redress. If we are to believe another story, the dramatist 
Farquhar allowed himself to be caught by so theatrical a 
trick as a fake heiress, whose inheritance he discovered to 
be fictitious only after he had married her. The ordinary 
principles of decency and honor were no more essential to 
the fine gentleman in real life than they were on the stage. 

1 Some Remarkable Passages of the Infe of Mr. Wycherley. 


— 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 33 


Anthony Hamilton, for instance, described complacently 
how the Count de Grammont attempted to repair his for- 
tune by cheating at cards, and had not, apparently, the 
slightest feeling that such an action detracted anything 
from the count’s claim to be regarded as the very model of 
a fine gentleman. 

In the theaters themselves all pretense of order and de- 
cency was abandoned. During the early years of our 
period respectable ladies came masked and sat in a box, 
while the pit was filled with prostitutes. This is not denied 
by even the most determined defenders of the stage, and 
if we may believe the satirist, even ladies of quality sought 
adventure there. Says Robert Gould + 


“How often, Cl(evelan)d, hast thou here been found 
By a lascivious herd encompass’d round.” 


The young gallant, apparently, disregarded the play and 
devoted himself to conversation with the orange girls or 
the prostitutes. He came more to be seen than to see. 
Advancing to the middle of the pit, he produced a comb 
for his wig, called for an orange girl, and having bought 
some fruit, presented an orange to the nearest mask. After 
this, he fell asleep and only waked to start up at the end 
with an oath and loudly damn the play which he had not 
heard.? 

It was a mark of wit to make loud-voiced comments on 
the play, and apparently no one had a right to object if 
his neighbor’s conversation happened to drown out the 
voice of the actors. Pepys ® is thus deprived of the pleasure 
of a play, but is quite reconciled because the disturber 


1 The Play-House. A Satire. 1689. These quotations are from 
the revised versions of 1709. 

2 Character of a Town Gallant. 1675. 

8 February 18, 1667. 


34 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


is no less a person than Sir Charles Sedley, and his con- 
versation with a mask at his side as diverting as that on 
the stage. Brawls commonly interrupted performances, 
and Gould, in the satire quoted above, describes the scene 
vividly thus: 
“A harmless jest, or accidental blow, 

Spilling their snuff, or touching but the toe, 

With many other things too small to name, 

Did blow these sparks of honor to a flame: 


For such vile trifles, or some viler drab 
’Tis in an instant damn me, and a stab.” 


In reading the memoirs and history as well as the plays 
of the time, it is not so much the looseness which impresses 
a modern reader as the terrible brutality. Between 1660 
and 1700 much was done in reforming laws or administra- 
tion to make human life less cruel, but during the early 
part of this period there was much that was savage both 
in public and private life. It was not only possible for 
Titus Oates to send blameless men to execution, but also 
possible to punish him with almost equal barbarity. 
Politics was still a game played for heads, and you might 
send your opponent to the block by fair means or foul. 
The employment of thugs was almost a recognized manner 
of avenging injured honor, and the case of Charles and Sir 
John Coventry which has already been mentioned was only 
a single instance. Others may be added. Rochester (again 
be it noted a very fine gentleman) had Dryden beaten be- 
cause he suspected that the latter had helped Mulgrave 
with his “ Essay on Satyre,” which contained an attack on 
Rochester, and Sedley took a similar revenge on the actor 
Kynaston for burlesquing him on the stage. To us it 
would seem that the disgrace would attach to the man who 
took so cowardly a revenge, but contemporaries seemed to 
think that the shame stuck not upon Charles, Rochester, 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 35 


or Sedléy, but upon Sir John Coventry, Dryden, and 
Kynaston. 

If one turns over the records of social or political history, 
one sometimes turns sick at the hopeless tangle of intrigue 
and corruption, barbarity and baseness, which oft-times 
tainted even the best causes and the best men. Violence 
was familiar. Not only criminals, but also the more 
bigoted fanatics were punished with a revolting cruelty, as 
in the case of the pamphleteering Whig clergyman Samuel 
Johnson, who for his conscience suffered himself to be 
flogged like Titus Oates, from Newgate to Tyburn, without 
a murmur because, he said, he remembered how patiently 
Christ had borne the cross on Mount Calvary. With life 
as it was, it is no wonder that audiences at the theater 
were less sensitive than we to treachery and heartlessness, 
and were often moved only to laughter where we should 
be shocked. As spectators of life as well as of the stage, 
their feelings were necessarily less sensitive, and they were 
compelled, in self defense, to develop stomachs stronger 
than ours. 

One might go on indefinitely citing illustrations and 
making comment and comparison, but enough has already 
been pointed out to show that no character or incident in 
the plays was unwarranted by life, that the dramatists 
were not perverse creatures creating monsters to debase the 
auditors, but that they were merely holding the mirror up 
to nature, or rather, to that part of nature which was best 
known to their fashionable auditors. 

It is not to be supposed, of course, that England was 
exclusively made up of Rochesters and Sedleys, and that 
honor and decency were dead. Even among the wits there 
were no doubt many meetings like those described by 
Dryden,’ where he speaks of “ our genial nights, where our 


1 Dedication to The Assignation. 


36 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


discourse is neither too serious nor too light, but always 
pleasant, and, for the most part, instructive; the railery, 
neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious on 
the absent; and the cups only such as will raise the con- 
versation of the night, without disturbing the business of 
the morrow.” Men like Evelyn and Pepys (though the 
latter was somewhat given to gallantry) would be gentle- 
men in any age, and the names of the Earl of Clarendon 
and Sir William Temple are enough to remind us that not 
all politicians were base. As for the ladies, the delight- 
ful and eccentric Duchess of Newcastle proves that one of 
them, at least, might be a wit and no prude; be beautiful, 
and yet faithful to her husband. 

When one comes to the middle class, too, there is, no 
doubt, another story to tell. Many a Puritan still lived, 
and certainly the great majority of the people looked with 
horror upon the life of the fashionable set. While the 
gallants considered adultery as a sport, there were not 
wanting people to argue that it should be punished by 
death? and who, instead of being drunk for five years 
together, like Rochester, urged the prohibition of the im- 
portation of brandy.” 

To realize what a numerous class the pious were as com- 
pared to the others, one need only study the bibliography 
of the period. In his preface to the Term Catalogues, 
Professor Arber says, ‘‘ We must largely reverse our ideas 
as to the general character of English Literature during the 
Restoration, Age — the general tone of its books was deeply 
‘religious; mingled with much philosophical inquiry,)and 
deep research into nature — as this contemporary bibliog- 
raphy clearly shows — all those shilling plays put together 

1 See Pamphlet published 1675 and reprinted in the Harleian 


Misc., Vol. III, p. 93. 
2 Harleian Misc., Vol. III, p. 569. 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 37 


do not form two per centum of the total English books of 
the times; whether as regards their printed bulk, or their 
prices. It was the religious people first, and the scientists 
next, that made the fortunes of the London book trade. 
They often subscribed as much for the folios of a single 
writer, like Tillotson or Rushworth, Baxter or Ray, Man- 
ton or Bunyan, as would have bought a complete set of 
all the plays of that time.” ? 

Far from being debauched, the middle and lower class 
was permeated with a spirit of somewhat crude and narrow 
piety. We are more familiar with the obscene fugitive 
pieces and tracts, but the British Museum has, in addition 
to such pieces as are reprinted in the ‘“ Poems on State 
Occasions,” an interesting collection of religious broadsides, 
bearing such quaint titles as ‘‘ The Young Man’s Warning 
Piece, or The Extravagant Youth’s Pilgrimage and Progress 
in this World” (1682), or ‘“ Divers Examples of God’s 
Severe Judgment upon Sabbath Brakers, etc.” (1672). 
The latter is adorned with truly horrendous woodcuts de- 
picting a collection of stiff youths breaking through the 
ice on which they had been disporting themselves at foot- 
ball, unmindful of the desecration of the Sabbath. White- 
hall and the Puritan populace were far apart, and not all 
the nation had joined in the unrestrained carnival following 
the Restoration. 

But it must be remembered that this great body of 
respectable Englishmen, who were not interested in belles 
lettres, does not concern us, because the theater, to an | 
extent probably never true before or since, was the affair 
only of the court and of the fashionable class. In the 
time of Elizabeth, it belonged to the people almost as much 
as the “ movies” do today; but under Charles and James, 
the great middle class neither frequented the theater nor 


1 Term Catalogue. Vol. III. 


38 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


was represented upon the stage, except, perhaps, as an 
object of ridicule. That this is true there is abundance of 
evidence. We know that to attend the theater and be 
able to discuss the latest plays was part of the regular 
business of the man of fashion, and we know also that a 
small number of theaters were sufficient to supply the de- 
mand, and that hence it must have been only the people of 
fashion who attended. We have no complete record of the 
play-houses under Elizabeth, but it is probable that as many 
as seven were in operation at one time. When Charles 
settled theatrical affairs in 1662, he gave license for only 
two, and in 1682 it was discovered that there was not enough 
business to justify both of them, and so the companies 
were united. From that time until 1695, when Betterton 
seceded, London, which had six or seven theaters in Eliza- 

beth’s time, needed only one, in spite of the fact that the 
' city had greatly increased in size. 

In this connection, the anonymous dialogue called ‘‘ His- 
toria Histrionica,” attributed to James Wright, contains 
an interesting passage. One of the speakers expresses sur- 
prise at the decrease in the number of theaters, saying 
that while there were a number before the Commonwealth, 
two are now hardly able to exist. His companion replies 
that in former times the price of admission was less and 
that, moreover, plays were then innocent diversions, but 
that of late they are no longer instructive, and the play- 
houses so “ pestered with vizard-masks and their trade” 
that many of the more civilized part of the town shun the 
theater as they would a house of scandal. In 1706, at a 
time when only Drury Lane and the Haymarket were 
open, Congreve wrote that he did not believe that the 
play-houses could go on another winter,t and Cibber dates 
the beginning of the prosperity of the stage at 1711. 

1 Letter to Kealley in Berkley’s Literary Relics. 


lh 


; 
i 
9 
j 
4 
; 
} 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 39 


Another indication that the theater was an affair of the 
fashionable world is to be found in the persons of some 
of the people who wrote for it. Of the five great comedy 
writers, Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh and 
Farquhar, four were distinguished men of fashion, and two 
were, in addition, knights; so that, if we may reverse the 
famous phrase, it may be said of them that they “ for fame 
not money winged their airy flight.” If the success or 
failure of a play had depended upon any but people of 
fashion, it is not likely that they would have risked their 
reputation before an audience. Briefly then, the Restora- 
tion stage was a fashionable entertainment where the most 
reckless of the upper class saw their follies and vices wittily 
and realistically presented. 

From this it is evident that certain of the characteristics 
of the Restoration drama were inevitable. In the first 
place, since “the drama’s laws the drama’s patrons give,” 
any dramatist who had written idealistically would have 
been neglected for some one who knew better how to 
meet the taste of the audience. In the second place, any 
comedy of manners which depicted the actual life of the 
upper class of the times had to be in one sense corrupt if 
it was to be true. It could not picture the times and be 
pure. It is not strange that under the circumstances people 
of the times should not have been shocked by this drama 
as its modern readers have been shocked, because the people 
for whom it was written were familiar with open corrup- 
tion in a way that most modern readers are not. Dorimant 
and Mirabel may seem to some mere creatures of fancy, 
but the audience at the Restoration theater not only knew 
that they existed but had come into personal contact with 
them. This audience was not likely to resent on the stage 
what it knew to exist openly. Nor is there anything in this 
which need damn the dramatists as men. They had no 


= 


40 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


deliberate intention of encouraging vice, which, being men 
of sense, they no doubt hated. 

The material, then, of Restoration Comedy was inevita- 
ble; but there remains the question of the dramatists’ 
attitude toward it. Those who attacked the stage came, 
as will be seen later, to object to the representation of 
impurity in any way, but it was also charged that the 
dramatists not only represented the corruption of the time 
but sympathized with it and encouraged it. The writers 
of sentimental comedy depicted faulty characters in order 
to show them in the end unsuccessful, and justified them- 
selves on this plea. Certainly the Restoration writer did 


_ nothing of this sort. His heroes, however debased and 


however careless, found only greater success at the end 
of the primrose path. We are faced, then, with the task 
of discovering the attitude of the dramatist, of finding out 
what he was trying to do and what he regarded as his func- 
tion. Did he consider himself a satirist, opposing vices 
and follies that. they might be scorned and corrected; did 
he in the main sympathize with the society which he 
pictured; or, finally, was he merely indifferent, presenting 
life as it was and caring but little whether it was virtuous 
or vicious? To help us, we have statements from many 
of the dramatists themselves; for the literary art had 
become a manner of fashionable interest, and the writer 
found it worth his while to discuss for the benefit of his 
public the principles of his craft in a way that would have 
had but little interest for the general public in preceding 
centuries. 

One well-known critic of the present day has been so rash 
as to assert that Jeremy Collier was the first man to pro- 
pose a moral test for comedy. On the contrary, no critical 
question concerning it is older. Comedy, like other forms of 


R 
“ 
} 
7 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 41 


literature, has endured because it pleases; but philosophers 
have ever been loth to accept a hedonistic justification, and 
comic poets,.when driven to defend themselves, have usu- 
ally chosen to claim.a moral function, and to say that if 
they did not always, like tragic writers, punish vice, they 
at least discouraged it by making it ridiculous and_ by 
putting laughter on the side of virtue. The great Rapin 
represented a common opinion when he wrote in his “ Re- 
flections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poetry”:* “Comedy, 
is an image of common life; its end is to show on the 
stage the faults of particulars, in order to amend the faults 
of the public and to correct the people by a fear of being 
ridiculous.”’ This, which may be called the orthodox idea 
of the function of comedy, is the one most commonly .. 
stated by the Restoration dramatist; but it should be re- 
membered that it was merely an orthodox opinion, and 
like the 39 articles of the Church of England was accepted 
as a matter of policy by many who had no intention of 
doing more than giving a formal assent. 

Thomas Shadwell was more fond than any of the others 
of proclaiming the moral intention of his comedies, and 
though it is certainly hard to imagine any one’s moral 
standard being raised by witnessing that excellent comedy 
“The Squire of Alsatia” (though he might learn some 
lessons of prudence), it would only be fair to Shadwell to 
say that probably few of the dramatists of the Restora- 
tion were as honest in their intentions as he, and so he may 
be allowed to speak first. In the preface to “The Humor- 
ist” he writes: “ My design was in it, to reprehend some 
of the vices and follies of the age, which I take to be the 
most proper, and most useful way of writing comedy.” He 
objects to the idea that comedies have no other purpose 

1 Translated in 1674 by Thomas Rymer. 


42 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


than to entertain, and adds: “ Methinks the poet should 
never acknowledge this, for it makes him of as little use to 
‘mankind as a fiddler, or dancing-master.” : 

All this sounds well enough, but to what extent was the 4 
theory borne out in practice? Such protest of the sincerely 
satiric intention was the conventional attitude of the 
dramatist when he thought that he ought to defend him- 
self, and some modern writers like Mr. Bernbaum?+ seem b 
disposed to accept it at its face value. The latter quotes 
from several of the dramatists passages in which they 
proclaim such intentions; but he only succeeds in proving 
that satire was the ostensible theory on which they wrote. 
To establish his contention, he selects passages like the 
following, the first being from Dryden, and the last two 
from Congreve: ‘Comedy presents us with the imperfec- 
tions of human nature — [it] causes laughter in those who 
can judge of men and manners, by the lively representation 
of their folly and corruption.” “I designed the moral 
first, and to that moral I invented a fable.” ‘‘ Men are to 
be laughed out of their vices in comedy—as vicious 
people are made ashamed of their follies or faults by 
seeing them exposed in a ridiculous manner, so are good 
people at once warned and diverted at their expense.” 

If it were a question merely of what the dramatists said 
they did (especially when they felt the necessity of defend- 
ing themselves) rather than a question of their actual prac- 
tice, then still more protestations of the kind given 

' above could be cited, but the plays themselves are more 
significant than anything which their authors say about 
them, and it would take a good deal to convince one that 
| Congreve, for instance, wrote his plays for the sake of 
anything but amusement, or that if he had a moral it was 
anything but a cynical one. Moreover, Dryden himself, 


1 The Drama of Sentiment. 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 43 


whom Mr. Bernbaum quotes, is not noted for the consis- 
tency of his critical utterances, and in the preface to “ The 
Mock Astrologer” he flatly repudiates any responsibility 
of the dramatist to point a moral. The statement of his 
case is so unequivocal that it is worth quoting: “It is 
charged upon me that I make debauched persons (such 
as, they say, my Astrologer and Gamester are) my pro- 
tagonists, or the chief persons of the drama; and that I 
make them happy in the conclusion of my play; against 
the law of comedy, which is to reward virtue and punish 
vice. I answer, first, that I know no such law to have been 
constantly observed in comedy, either by the ancient or 
modern poets — the chief end of it (comedy) is divertise- 
ment and delight: and that so much, that it is disputed, 
I think, by Heinsius before Horace’s ‘Art of Poetry,’ 
whether instruction be any part of its employment. At 
least 1 am sure it can be but its secondary end: for the 


business of the poet is to make you laugh.” Here is the | 


true spirit in which the Restoration dramatist worked, 
whatever may have been his professed theory. 

Mrs. Behn is equally clear when, in the preface 
to “The Dutch Lovers,” she writes: “In my judgment 
the increasing number of our later plays have not done 
much more towards the amending of mens’ morals, or their 
wit, than hath the frequent preaching, which this last 
age hath been pester’d with, (indeed without all contro- 
versy they have done less harm) nor can I once imagine 
what temptation anyone can have to expect it from them; 
for sure I am no play was ever writ with that design — as 
I take it comedy was never meant, either for a converting 
or conforming ordinance: In short, I think a play the best 
divertisement that wise men have.” Yet Mrs. Behn was 
perfectly willing to fall in with the prevailing pose when 
there was occasion for it, as may be seen from her dedica- 


I 


44 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


tion to ‘ The Lucky Chance” where she quotes Richelieu 
and D’Aubignac on the moral and political value of plays. 
Any attempt to regard the Restoration drama, as a 
_ whole, as satiric in an austere sense is doomed to failure. 
' This is not, of course, to say that the method was not that 
of satire. The method is that of picturing things in such 
a way as to cause them to be laughed at, and this is, in 
one sense, satire. But if, on the other hand, the term 
implies also an attempt to promote moral improvement, 
then the Restoration drama was not satiric. The dramatist 
did not inspire to virtue, because he had no great faith in 
it. He hated foolishness, cant, and all that was not easy 
and graceful, and all these things he satirized. He sati- 
L rized pretense, foppery, and failure, but not graceful vice. 
Thus Sir Fopling Flutter is ridiculed, but there is no satire 
for Dorimant, the graceful rake of the same play. In 
“The Country Wife” there is a satire of the foolish hus- 
band, but no satire of Horner, who takes advantage of him. 
Worldly wisdom is the ideal, and he who has it escapes 
satire just as surely as he mi lacks it falls under ridicule. 
Virtue has nothing to do with the matter. The dramatists 
cynically admire nothing but success, and satirize nothing 
but failure — failure to be graceful, failure to be witty, 
and failure in savoir faire, but not failure to be virtuous. 
The truth of the matter seems to be that the poets were 
not interested-in-moralityeither one way or the other. 
They were not, as Collier tried to prove, actively engaged 
in any systematic attempt to destroy it; but neither were 
they engaged in any attempt through the employment of 
satire, or by any other means, to recommend it. They 
- wished their plays to be realistic, to be witty, to be polished, J 
and, above all, to be penetrating; but they were expositors 
rather than preachers, and they set forth the ideas of the 


Oe ee ee a a 


wt iii sia ae a 


ore ae 


7 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 45 


time without attempting either to improve or to debase 
them. It is true that certain minor wits, including Dryden 
and Mrs. Behn, did pander shamefully to the lust of 
the audience, but that cannot be charged against Wycher- 
ley, Congreve, or Vanbrugh. The worst that can be said 
of them is that they were cynical, and that they accepted 
life as they found it without any attempt to make it better. 
Dryden, Wycherley, and Mrs. Behn were each cynical for 
a different reason: Wycherley because he had no faith 
that human nature, bad as it was, could be made better; 
Mrs. Behn because to refuse to be bound in any manner 
by morality gave her freedom to devise those amorous 
intrigues which she loved; Dryden chiefly, it seems, be- 
cause it paid a writer to be so. 

These men were more definitely than most literary men, 
* perhaps, a part of the life they depicted. The best writers 
were themselves men of fashion and wit; and hence mem- 
bers of the same class as their characters, whom they there- 
fore saw from within rather than from without, and whose 
ideas they expounded, and, to a certain extent, whose 
limitations they shared. They were almost too much a 
part of the life to have an attitude towards it, and they 
shared its limitations too much to be able to criticise 


them. Consequently they express rather than criticise or “ 


advocate the Restoration manner and thought. They did 
not exactly advocate sexual looseness, but they held no 
very high standard of sexual purity, for neither they nor 
their contemporaries practiced or much regarded it. Purity 
was perhaps an ideal, but they never expected either them- 
selves or others to live up to it. Scruples of honor and 
faith in the other relations of life were also, no doubt, 
beautiful, but hardly customary; for, although they made 
an additional ornament to character, they were so often 


~ 


46 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


lacking that they were not regarded as necessary to the 
heroes of drama any more than they were to the great 
in public life. 

Within these general limits, most of the Restoration 
writers may be confined. They were the very opposite of 
idealistic, and the differences between them consist chiefly 
in the degree of frankness with which they acknowledged 
the facts and the extent to which they disapproved of them. 
One would judge from Mrs. Behn’s plays that she thought 
the world of restless amorous intrigue the best of all 
possible worlds. Wycherley accepts it as frankly as she 
does, and seems to have as little hope that it might be 
better, but he recognizes its ugliness. The cynicism and’ 
ferocious vigor with which he depicts the vices of the age 
imply a genuine and savage disgust at its baseness. 
Macaulay refers to him as “the most licentious writer of 
a singularly licentious and hard-hearted school,” but this 
is hardly fair. His plays are obscene, perhaps, but not 
licentious. He recognizes the ugliness of vice, as Mrs. 
Behn, for instance, does not, and is to that extent a moral- 
ist, though he neither urges nor expects a reformation. An 
upright character is a curiosity, and must be content like 
Manly in “The Plain Dealer” to purchase personal 
rectitude at the price of being himself deceived. The 
successful man is the one who like Horner in “ The Country 
Wife ” can play upon the weakness of his fellows. Wycher- 
ley’s whole philosophy is summed up in a speech made by 
Manly when an acquaintance remarks that, as for him, 
he speaks well of all men. Manly replies that his friend 


_ thereby does the greatest possible injustice to the few who 
really deserve it. 


Congreve’s estimate of the world is not different, but it 
is less bitter. No more than Wycherley does he believe 
in faith or honor. But he is less savage. He would, 


. i a 


THE DRAMA AND SOCIETY 47 


perhaps, admire virtue and truth, but they hardly exist. 
One may if he likes lead a blameless life, but he need not 
expect others to do so. Nor is it necessary to get excited 
over the matter. Congreve watches the corruption of 
society with an amused detachment, and is resolved to be 
content if it is only graceful. Wycherley sums up his 
philosophy in the bit of dialogue just quoted. Congreve 
summed up his in a light song which ends: 


“He alone won’t betray in whom none will confide: 
And the nymph may be chaste that has never been tried.” 


The judgments of the two men are closely akin, but where 
one finds indignation the other finds only amusement. 

It is evident that such a drama was too much a part of | ) 
the spirit of the age wholly to please any other time. K 
As manners improved, the plays would seem not like truths 
but lke libels, and when idealism returned, moralists 
would insist also that plays must in some measure inspire 
as well as depict, and the drama would change. 

We are to be concerned with this change. Before pro- 
ceeding with the drama, it will be necessary to glance at 
the development of literary criticism, which was preparing 
a weapon to overturn the critical theories of the Restora- 
tion dramatists.. 


. 


CHAPTER III 
CRITIC AND AMATEUR 


In the preceding chapter, attention was called to the 
fact that it was possible to cite the testimony of the play- 
wrights themselves concerning their attitude toward their 
art. This fact is extremely significant, and indicates one 
of the greatest differences between the Elizabethan and the 
Restoration ages. In the former it was the exception when 
the dramatic author talked about his works to the public. 
The earliest dramatists never did so. But the habit grew 
during the seventeenth century, and by 1700 had become 
customary. This fact illustrates especially an increasing 
interest in literature, consciously thought of as such, on 
the part of the general public. No doubt artists had 
always been in the habit of discussing their craft among 
themselves, but the general public was not interested. It 
heard its ballad or saw its play, but cared nothing for the 
principles of literary criticism, or very much for the per- 
sonality of authors. When we reach the seventeenth cen- 
tury, however, sophistication has advanced to ‘such a 
point that literature has taken a prominent place in fash- 
ionable life, and become a thing not merely to be enjoyed, 
but also to be discussed. The principles of the art are in 
everyone’s mouth, the dilettante has become fashionable, 
and the author a public personage. He tells the public of 
his ideas concerning literature, he publishes his letters, 
and after he dies some one presents an account of his life. 
Thus we are not very far from the modern tradition where 

48 


a irae ~——— 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 49 


everything that concerns an author, down to his taste in 
food, is a matter of public interest and is “ written up” 
in the magazines. 

The present chapter is an attempt to trace the growing 
importance of literary criticism, both formal and informal, 
and of this general public interest in authors and author- 
ship which increased so much between 1660 and 1700. Nor 
is this subject at all foreign to our general topic. The de- 
cline of Restoration Comedy and the rise of Sentimental 
Comedy were accompanied by a great deal of discussion, 
oral and written, over literary questions. Marlowe gave 
but a brief warning that he was about to replace the early 
Elizabethan jiggings with poetry. Jonson introduced his 
style of comedy with somewhat more explanation and pro- 
test, but neither change was accompanied by anything 
like the amount of public discussion that attended the 
“reform” of the English stage about 1700. Every one 
was conscious of this change. Every one discussed it from 
one point of view or another. The whole movement was 
intensely self-conscious, and one of its chief protagonists, ~ 
Steele, was a theorist more than he was a playwright. As 
to the Jeremy Collier controversy itself, it was, as Spingarn 
points out, really a critical controversy. Collier was prin- 
cipally a moralist, but borrowed some of his weapons from 
the critics, and indeed based some of his arguments on 
purely critical grounds. Moreover the controversy raged 
not only around questions of abstract morality, but also , 
around the moral function of the stage and how it could 
best fulfill this function. No previous critical discussion 
‘had produced such a bulk of writing, and it is unlikely 
that the discussion would have taken the turn which it 
did had it not been for the previous development of criti- 
cism here to be discussed. And, inversely, it seems ex- 
tremely probable that the amount of attention which the 


50 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Collier controversy attracted encouraged succeeding writers 
of criticism. 

The debt which the reform movement owed to the critical 
development of the latter part of the century was a double 
one. This development gave currency to several theories 
about the function of the stage which, if put into practice, 
would necessitate a reform; and, second, by popularizing 
criticism it made these theories seem no longer merely 
academic propositions but live issues. It inspired the moral- 
ists to demand that they be put into practice, and it en- 
couraged the dilettante to wish to see the experiment tried. 
‘It is the: purpose of this chapter merely to show the 
growth of interest in criticism itself, and of the following 
one to set forth such of the ideas developed as are signifi- 
cant in our discussion. 

Criticism is a late birth. In its earliest form it is likely 
to be learned, and prodigiously heavy; or, if popular, to 
confine itself to the bestowal of epithets such as the 


“ honey-tongued Shakespeare ” and the “ mellifluous Ovid.” J 


For some decades after the close of the fifteenth century 
there was not a single critical treatise on the English lan- 
guage or literature existing in the English tongue. We 
find a little later that Hawes’ “ Pastime of Pleasure ” 
(1517), discusses poets, that Wilson’s “ Art of Rhetoric” 
(1553), deals with the old technicalities, and that Ascham’s 
“'Toxophilus”’ (1545) and “The Scholemaster” (1570), 
attack “books of feyned chivalry” and the novella, but 
that Gascoigne’s ‘‘ Certain Notes of Instruction concerning — 
the Making of Verse ” is the first separate book of English ~ 
criticism.* | 

In Sidney’s “ An Apologie for Poetrie” (1595), Eliza- 
bethan criticism produced one work which towers far above _ 
all other English criticism before the time of Dryden. Be- — 
tween Sidney and Jonson the principal critical writers, the — 

1 Saintsbury. History of Criticism. 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 


Gossons, the Googes, and the Webbes, were concerned with 
attack and defense of literature in general, or with tech- 
nical questions, especially that concerning rhyme versus 
quantity, but with Jonson we have the first Englishman to 
devote sustained effort to criticism. He was the first to 
furnish a preface to a play, and in taking this means to put 
before the reader his theory of comedy, and his likes and 
dislikes, he set a precedent of enormous importance in the 
development of popular as opposed to academic and 
pedantic criticism. Moreover he translated that, for seven- 
teenth century critics, most sacred of sacred writings, 
Horace’s “ De Arte Poetica,” and in his “ Discoveries,” if 
he did not as was formerly thought show great originality, 
he did at least give proof that he preceded the classicist 
or pseudo-classicist of the latter part of the century and 
read not only Aristotle, Seneca, Quintilian and other classi- 
cal writers, but also the humanists, including the two 
Scaligers and D. Heinsius. 

Yet in spite of Jonson’s interest in the subject and the 
interest also of Bacon, criticism does not bulk large during 
the first half of the seventeenth century, and it is not too 
much to say that it was the later seventeenth century that 
gave it its place in‘ the popular mind as one of the 
branches of literature. The Restoration age made the 
critic a recognized figure like the poet or dramatist, and 
so caused almost every successful work to be accompanied 
by critical discussion. Rymer felt this change keenly. 
Speaking of the early part of the century he says: “ At 
this time — Ben Jonson, I think, had all the critical learn- 
ing to himself; and till of late years England was as free 
from critics as it is from wolves, that a harmless well- 
Ineaning book might pass without any danger. But now 
this privilege, whatever extraordinary talent it requires, 
is usurped by the most ignorant; and they who are least 

1 Gregory Smith. Ben Jonson. 


52 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


acquainted with the game are aptest to bark at every thing 
that comes in their way.” This increasing tendency to dis- 
cuss literature is important in our subject because it is 
paving the way for the controversy over the stage, and 
because it was not until such discussion should become 
familiar that a Steele, for instance, could use criticism to 
influence public literary taste as he did. 

Speaking of the “great names” of Jonson, Bacon, 
Milton, and Hobbes, Spingarn says:+ “It is doubtful 
whether any of these four justified one of the most signifi- 
cant. of the critic’s functions by interpreting a poet to his 
contemporaries, or by making an unknown name a real 
possession of English literature. Not a single author was 
better understood because of any light shed by them.” 
What this means is that criticism, which interested only a 
few scholars and neither the general public nor many of the 
popular authors, was as yet cold, pedantic, and half alive. 
The later seventeenth century, on the other hand, loved 
to talk about literature; and from this talk sprang a style 
of criticism which was a sort of free and easy running 


comment on the writings of the day and by its close 


connection with living taste helped to mould it. “In 
former times,” wrote D’Urfey,? “a play of humor or a 
comedy with a good plot, could certainly please; but now 


a poet must find out a third way, and adapt his scenes and © 


plot to the genius of the critic, if he’d have it pass.” 
What Steele said about his plays had perhaps as much to 
do with establishing the Sentimental tradition as did the 
plays themselves, but this could not have been true had 
not the years between 1660 and 1700 prepared the way by 
arousing public interest in criticism. 

Hamelius, Saintsbury, and Spingarn have traced the de- 


1 Camb. Hist. of Eng. Lit. Vol. VII, Chap. XI. 
2 Preface to The Bandittv. 


eS a 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 53 


velopment of the principal critical ideas during the seven-— 
teenth century. My purpose in the present chapter is 
somewhat different. Many of the ideas are not in them- 
selves pertinent to our subject. What I want to do is to 
demonstrate by means of a bibliography and a discussion 
the growth in extent and variety of popular interest in 
critical literature, and the increasing prominence of the 
critic, so as to show how it was that by the end of the 
seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries 
people were as open to influence from talks about literature 
as I shall later prove them to have been. The Sentimental 
Comedy was an artificial product and it was born and \ 
nourished partly as the result of talk — talk about morals 
in general and about those of the theater in particular. ’ 
That a general purification of language and manners should 
take place was inevitable from social changes, but the 
change in the drama went deeper than this. There was a 
change in method from the satiric to the sentimental, and ° 
this change took place partially through the operation of 
critical theory. 

We may divide seventeenth century criticism into two 
streams, the formal and learned treatises in pseudo- 
classical theory and the informal chit-chat of the coffee 
house. Between the two came literary mediators, king of 
whom is Dryden, who gave to formal criticism some of the 
ease of conversation. We shall discuss the formalists first. 

It was on the classical writers that all the formal criti- 
cism was ostensibly based, but it was from the commenta- — 
tors on classical writers that the influence really came. 
Translations from Longinus appeared in 1652,! 1680, and 
1692; Roscommon printed his verse translation of Horace’s 
“Art of Poetry” in 1680; and another translation 


1 This date is wrongly given as 1662 in the British Museum 
catalogue. 


54 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


by Oldham appeared later (1681). The “ Poetics” of 
» Aristotle appeared in English dress in 1705, but it was 
_ to the French that the English looked most often for 
critical guidance. The noise of the controversy over the 
“Cid” had reached England, and it was probably from 
Corneille that Dryden got the idea of prefixing criti- 
cal discussions to his plays. With the English, René 
Rapin was an especial favorite. No less than six of his 
critical works were translated in our period, beginning with 
“The Comparison of Plato and Aristotle” in 1673 and 
ending with ‘Comparison of Thucidides and Livy” in 
1694. Boileau’s “ Art of Poetry ” was translated in verse 
in 1683 and Hédelin’s heavy volume called ‘The Whole 
Art of the Stage” in the following year. Other transla- 
tions from the French may be found by referring to the 
Bibliography. 

In France criticism was already alive, and Hédelin tells 
us that so great was the interest in formal criticism that 
not only did the players scarce discuss anything else than 


the value of the unity of time, but even the ladies in their. 


ruelles undertook to defend it. Hédelin himself was not 
a mere theorist, as he had been made by Richelieu a sort 
of overseer of the stage and so should have been a “ practi- 
cal man of the theater.” He demanded, however, the most 
rigid adherence to the rules, and would not purchase suc- 
cess at the cost of violating one of them, so that even in 
France where the unities were much more revered than 
in England, his regular but dull play was the subject of 
satiric comment. 

The honor of having written the first formal critical 
treatise on the stage published in England after the Res- 
toration must be given to Flecknoe. It is doubtful if 
even Marvell’s satire would have kept alive Flecknoe’s 
name had that name not been taken over by Dryden to 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 55 


stigmatize Shadwell, and, accordingly, our unfortunate 
critic may be said to owe such fame as he has, not to the 
direct damnation of Marvell but to the reflected damnation 
of Dryden. He was a by-word for bad poetry whom Lang- 
baine described thus: ‘“ His acquaintance with the nobility, 
was more than with the muses; and he had a greater 
propensity to rhyming than a genius to poetry.” Though 
only one of his plays was ever acted, he amused him- 
self by making lists in which suitable actors were ar- 
ranged to various persons of his dramas. His “ A Short 
Discourse on the English Stage,” published in 1664 as 
a preface to a pastoral-tragi-comedy, ‘“ Love’s Kingdom,” 
is interesting in that it presents immediately the doctrine 
of the moral end of all drama, which was so often pre- 
sented by Restoration critics, but which somehow was 
not taken seriously by the dramatists or the public 

until the end of the seventeenth century. Aside from this, 
 Flecknoe can have but little interest. He was too well 
recognized as a stock figure of a dunce for anyone to have 
the hardihood to quote him, and so he can have had but 
little influence. 

The first Englishman to acquire a substantial reputation 
solely as a critic was Thomas Rymer, now honored mostly 
as an antiquarian for his collection of State Papers called 
“ Foedera,” published comparatively late in his life (1704— 
1713). Most people now remember only Macaulay’s re- 
marks about “ Rymer whom we take to have been the 
worst critic that ever lived,” but though violently attacked 
in his own time, he nevertheless commanded considerable ~ 
respect, for Pope called him “on the whole one of the 
best critics we ever had,’ and we learn from the Gentle- 
man’s Journal (Dec. 1692) that his “Short View of 
Tragedy ” was “ expected with much impatience.” 


1 Spence’s Anecdotes. 


56 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Rymer borrowed his ideas from the French, and his first 
critical effort was a preface to Rapin’s “ Reflexions sur la 
Poétique en General” which he translated under the title 


of “‘ Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie’”’ (1674). — 


Rymer was an uncompromising neoclassicist, who held the 
rules absolute, not because they had the support of au- 
thority, but because (as Rapin had put it) they were 
founded on reason and good sense, and poetry could not 
be profitable and delightful in defiance of them. In his 
own preface, Rapin had remarked that Lope de Vega? 
was the only man who had dared to attack the rules, 
and that he had succeeded so ill that this piece was not 
deemed worthy of inclusion in his collected works. In the 
‘Tragedies of the Last Age” (1678) Rymer developed the 
doctrine of Poetic Justice, and in “A Short View of 
Tragedy ” (1693), he damned himself so far as futurity 
was concerned by analyzing “ Othello” as an example of a 
bad play and remarking that “ Gorboduc ” (because it was 
according to the rules) would have been a better model for 


Shakespeare and Jonson to follow than were those which — 


they chose. In this respect he was only following Sidney, 
who could give even qualified praise to ‘‘ Gorboduc ”’ alone 
among contemporary plays. Sidney however saw only 
the beginning of the great drama, and, had he known 
Shakespeare, might not, like Rymer, have execrated him. 
Rymer recognized the genius of the English poets, but la- 
mented their irregularities, so that he is inclined to regard 
them as Voltaire did Shakespeare —that is, as barbaric 
geniuses. 

He was replied to in his own age, notably by an anony- 
mous attack on ‘“ Tragedies of the Last Age” in the col- 
lection of “ Miscellaneous Letters and Essays” edited by 
Charles Gildon in 1694, and by John Dennis, who objected 

1 See Tha New Art of Writing Plays. Trans. W T. Brewster. 


ot, Boel 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 57 


to “A Short View of Tragedy ” in “ The Impartial Critic ” 
(1693). It would be unprofitable for us to inquire as some 
moderns have done whether Pope or Macaulay was nearer 
right in his estimate of Rymer. It is sufficient to say that, 
granting him his premises, he was logical enough, and that 
if consistency to principles which would have ruined the 
stage is enough to entitle a man to the title of a “ good 
critic,’ then Rymer was one. Jeremy Collier himself . 
could not have insisted more firmly on the obligation of 
the stage to teach morality; and this phase of Rymer’s 
system will be discussed in the next chapter, as it bears 
directly on the principal subject in hand. 

The great difficulty with such a critic as Rymer was 
that he went at the matter from the wrong end. The rules, 
formulated a priori from reason, must be right, he said, 
for reason could not be wrong. And, accordingly, if a play 
written according to the rules failed, then it must be the 
fault of the audience. His own “ Edgar” (1677) was a 
complete failure, but that did not matter. Better to fail 
with Aristotle than succeed with Shakespeare. Dryden, on 
the other hand, was not that sort of man. He was a 
dramatist first, and if some of the rules seemed to make 
for bad plays, then he was more ready to suspect that 
there was a flaw somewhere in the “reason” which sup- 
ported the rules than that bad plays had been proved to be 
good ones. Consequently, he felt, one had best re-examine 
the reason. For instance, the pseudo-classicists “ proved ”’ 
that it was absurd not to maintain the unity of place for, 
said they, is it not ridiculous to suppose that the same spot 
is in one scene Rome and in the next Athens? Dryden 
saw that much better plays could be written if the play- 
wrights were allowed liberty in this respect. He examined 
the reason which supported the rule of the unity of place, 
and shrewdly observed through the mouth of one of the 


58 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


speakers in his “Of Dramatick Poesie” (1668), that it is 
no more absurd to imagine a place Athens after having 
imagined it Rome than it was to imagine it Rome in the 
first place. Thus is the light of common sense let into 
criticism, and through the device of the dialogue in which 
the essay is written, occasion is given to submit even the 
sacred rules to the ordeal by question, and hence to facili- 
tate the arrival at truth and the clearing away of rubbish. 
So through all his magnificent series of prefaces, Dryden 
acts as mediator between critic and playwright. No play- 
wright could follow Rymer and be successful, and Rymer 
demanded that he be followed implicitly. Dryden assumed 
no infallibility. He brought forth the classical doctrines, 
held them up to the light of day and said, “ Let us see 
what there is in all this which is of value to us.” Thus 
he did more than any other man to bridge the gulf which 
separated playwright and critic, and to make criticism a 
living force. 

Most of Dryden’s criticism appeared in the form of 
prefaces, and nothing is more significant of what we are 
now trying to illustrate, namely the growing rapport be- 
tween popular literature and criticism, than the rise of the 
critical preface, which gradually became a recognized in- 
stitution. Here we have critics who do not, as Sidney and 
Rymer had done, stand off from dramatic literature and 
unintentionally subtract from the effect of their criticisms 
by pronouncing practically all that had been written and 
admired basically at fault, but actually come to grips with 
popular literature. 

Beljame suggests’ that the genesis of the preface was 
an economic necessity, and that prefaces were written 
primarily to give some good reason why a person who had 


1 Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au Diz- 
Hwtiéme Siecle. 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 59 


seen a play acted should buy the printed copy. Doubt- 
less there is something in this, but the real reason goes 
deeper, and lies in the need which the author felt of a 
mediator between his play and the audience; the need, 
in other words, for interpretative criticism. As has been 
remarked, Jonson was the first to use the critical preface, 
but, be it added, he was not the first to feel this need. 
Even the reserve of Shakespeare is somewhat broken in 
the famous prologue in which the audience is besought to 
use its imagination to transform the wooden O; Marlowe 
gave the audience due warning of his momentous innova- 
tion in a few lines; and other playwrights had come before 
their audience in prologue or in “ Induction” to explain 
their plays. But in spite of Jonson’s example, the preface 
did not rise to much importance before the Civil War. 
Dekker has a few short epistles, and in ‘‘ The Whore of 
Babylon” (1607), lets us into his theory by remarking: 
“and whereas I may, — be critically taxed, that I falsify 
the account of time, and set not down occurents, according 
to their true succession, let such (that are so nice of 
stomach) know that I write as a poet, not as an historian, 
and that these two do not live under one law.” Marston 
has one or two short addresses “To the Reader,” and 
Webster, in the ‘“ White Devil” (1612), protests against 
being tried according to the rules. On the whole, how- 
ever, these dramatists did not offer much apology for 
their plays; but after the Restoration it became much more 
common to do so, and the prefaces of Cowley, Dryden, 
Shadwell, Mrs. Behn, Vanbrugh, and many others furnish 
us with most valuable information. By this time criticism 
had become fashionable. The new play was sure to be 
technically discussed, and the playwright was fain at once 
to protect himself and to furnish material for talk by 
writing a preface. 


60 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


If Rymer was the first man in England to be known 
definitely as ‘a critic,” John Dennis was the first to make 
a living as one. It is true that he did some other literary 
work, and true also that his financial returns do not seem 
to have been very large; but he was a professional critic, 
and the fact that such a profession, which had never 
existed in England before, had come into being, was again 
an indication of the increasing importance of criticism in 
_the popular mind. Dennis, though of infinitely smaller 
X abilities, was, like Dryden, somewhat of a mediator. His 
principles were orthodox and founded on those of pseudo- 
classicism, but his method was to submit modern works 
to judgment in accordance with his views. His ‘“ Remarks 
on Prince Arthur” (1696) is sometimes called the first 
book review, though it is not quite clear to me why this 
title might not better be given to “ The Censure of the 
Rota on Mr. Driden’s Conquest of Granada” (1673), in 
which the new play is pulled to pieces and its absurdities 
revealed. Dennis was on the constant lookout for copy. 
Besides formal treatises like ‘The Advancement and 
Reformation of Modern Poetry ” (1701), he seized every 
opportunity of criticism or reply, as in his retort to Rymer 
in “ The Impartial Critick ” (1693), and in the “ Remarks 
on Prince Arthur.” Moreover he printed letters from Con- 
greve, Wycherley and others. Most of his work, however, 
lies beyond 1700. A 

A glance at the bibliography will show that in addition 
to the more or less formal treatises such as those men- 
tioned, the impulse to criticism was seeking expression in 
various other ways. There is, for instance, the strange com- 
pilation “ De Re Poetica” by Sir Thomas Pope Blount 
(1694), a sort of symposium on literature. It is divided 
into sections, “Concerning the Antiquity of Poetry,” 
“Concerning Tragedy,” etc., and the method is to proceed 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 61 


by a series of quotations introduced by phrases such as 
“ Aristotle says,” “Mr. Dryden tells us,” “ Milton ob- 
serves,” “‘ Vossius says,” etc., and thus to present a con- 
sensus of opinion for the use, perhaps, of amateur critics 
who wished to appear widely read at the cost of but little 
effort. 

The critical essays in verse furnish another class of 
compositions which became almost a fad. The Earl of 
Roscommon turned Horace’s precepts in favor of modera- 
tion, judgment, and harmony into English, and published 
them in 1680. Two years later the Earl of Mulgrave pro- 
claimed that “ nature’s chief master-piece is writing well ” 
and offered what he thought was a sort of Horace brought 
up to date, in which modern faults were corrected, abuses 
regulated, and obscenities censured. Boileau’s ‘“ Art of 
Poetry ” was translated by Soame, to whom Dryden, it is 
said, lent his aid in adapting it to English conditions by 
substituting the names of native writers for the Frenchmen 
whom Boileau had used in illustration; and, finally, Mul- 
grave, aided possibly by Dryden, printed his “ Essay on 
Satire” in which, in addition to satirizing some of his 
contemporaries, especially Rochester, he laid down what 
he considered were the general laws of the game. These 
essays are not to be confused with more or less fugitive 
verse satires. They were serious attempts, not so much to | 
establish new principles as to phrase the old ones more | 
aptly, and to give final form to generally accepted doc- 
trines. They were taken seriously by men of taste, they 
were often quoted as authority in published criticisms, and 
the epigrammatic phrases were no doubt much in the 
mouths of the talkers. It is perhaps a little difficult for 
us to understand the amount of interest which was taken 
in these repetitions of familiar dicta, but it must be re- 
membered that in no previous age had it been so nearly 


62 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


regarded a literal truth that nature’s chief masterpiece is 
writing well and that, in addition, there was an increasing 
belief in the necessity of conscious art to achieve good 
writing. Without it, genius was thought to be of no avail, 
and apparent naturalness was believed to be, if success- 
ful, only well hidden art. As Mulgrave put it: 

“Read Homer once, and you can read no more, 


For all things else will seem so dull and poor, 
* * * * * * * * * 


Had Bossu never writ, the world had still 

Like Indians, view’d this wondrous piece of skill; 
As something of divine the work admired, 

Hoped not to be instructed, but inspired.” 


Another type of critical publication never heard of be- 
fore began to appear in the form of little pamphlets 
devoted to the criticism of single new plays. They were 
not at first very dignified or important. Thus the amusing — 
“Censure of the Rota” (1673) describes the meeting of 
an imaginary club in which Dryden’s ‘Conquest of 
Granada” is discussed and damned. On a similar plan is ~ 
“A Description of the Academy of the Athenian Virtuosi,” 
published in the same year, and attacking the same play 
which, moreover, receives a serious defense in “ Mr. Drey- 
den Vindicated etc.” (1673). These pamphlets, I believe, 
furnish the first instance of a separate publication of a — 
criticism on a current play, but the custom became estab- — 
lished. Another group centered around Settle’s “The © 


Empress of Morocco ” (published 1673). “ Wit for Money; — 


or Poet Stutter, a dialogue — containing reflections on some 
late plays and particularly on Love for Money; or, the 
Boarding School” (1691) is an attack on D’Urfey. Two 
friends invite Stutter (D’Urfey) to a tavern. In conversa- 
tion they attack his bungling revisions, his thievings, and 
his habit of writing now on one side and now on the other. 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 63 


His fecundity is satirized by the statement that he has 
made “some 7,953 songs, 2,250 ballads, 1,956 catches, 
besides madrygals, odes, and other lyrick copies of verses 
ad infinitum.” The dedication is signed “Sir Critic Cat- 
Call.” D’Urfey also had the honor of receiving another 
separately published criticism on one of his plays. It had 
the complimentary title of “ Poeta Infamis; or a Poet not 
Worth Hanging — With a Letter to the Author of ‘The 
Marriage Hater Matched.’ Written by a Friend” (1692), 
and was a satire on a letter of Charles Gildon’s praising 
D’Urfey’s “ Marriage Hater Matched,” which letter had 
been prefixed to the play. After 1700 such pamphlets 
became more important. Minor controversies raged around 
Addison’s ‘“ Cato,” Steele’s “Conscious Lovers,” and 
others. 

Further public interest in authors is indicated by the 
publication of various familiar letters from well-known 
authors.‘ Interest in literature on the historical side was 
evinced by Sprat’s “ Life of Cowley,” prefixed to the 1668 
edition of the latter’s works, by Fuller’s “ Worthies”’ 
(1662), and by the Bibliographical and Biographical Dic- 
tionaries represented by Philipps’ “ Theatrum Poetarum ” 
(1675), Winstanley’s “ Lives of the Most Famous English 
Poets” (1687), and Langbaine’s “ Momus Triumphans’”’ 
(1687) and his “An Account of the English Dramatick 
Poets” (1691), the latter being used as a basis for other 
works. 

Finally, note should be taken of the appearance of liter- 
ary criticism, especially in the form of book reviews, in 
journals. Motteux’s ‘The Gentleman’s Journal; or The 
Monthly Miscellany,” which ran from January, 1693, to 
October, 1694, is a precursor of the monthly magazine. 
Besides original stories, poems, and the like, it contains 

1 See Bibliography. 


64 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


short notices of new plays and a critical death notice of 
Shadwell. John Dunton’s “The Complete Library: or, 
News for the Ingenious,” which began in 1692 and ran at 
least until April, 1694, was more definitely a ‘review ” 
and contained articles on such things as Gildon’s popular 
collection of epistles called ‘‘The Post Boy Rob’d of his 
Mail,” Temple’s ‘ Essays,’ Rymer’s “ Short View of Trag- 
edy,”’ Sir Thomas Pope Blount’s ‘‘ De Re Poetica.” This 
sort of thing, like the other forms of criticsm, continued to 
increase after 1700 and criticism became a familiar journal- 
istic feature. 

We may also notice the increasing frequency with which 
the critic figures in contemporary satire, which again 
illustrates the growing consciousness on the part of the 
public of the existence of this new personage in the literary 
commonwealth. Suckling in his “A Session of the Poets” 
borrowed an idea from the Italian and started a fashion 
in literary verse satire, but in his poem the critic does 
not appear. In the anonymous ‘A New Session of the 
Poets” (1700) the poets put in their claims for the laurel 
left by Dryden, but the critics also appear. One para- 
graph may be quoted for its illustration of the satirist’s 
attitude towards them: 


“ D’Ur—y withdrawn, a brace of criticks came, 
That would by others’ failure purchase fame: 
This peevish race will take a world of pains, 
To show that both the Arthurs! had no brains: 
And labor hard to bring authentic proof, 

That he that wrote Wit’s Satire 2 was an oaf. 
Like Bedlam curs, all that they meet they bite, 
Make war with wit, and worry all that write: 


1 Prince Arthur and King Arthur. Both by Sir Richard Black- 
more. 
2 Also by Blackmore. 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 65 


Thus while on Shakespeare one with fury flew, 
T’other his pen on well-bred Waller drew; 

Writ on, and vainly ventured to expose 

The noblest verse, and most exalted prose: 

To both these bards heaven gave so little grace, 
As of Apollo to demand the bays. 

After a pause — bright Phoebus silence broke, 
And with a frown to both by turn thus spoke: 
‘How darest thou, Caitiff, Shakespeare to asperse, 
Thou wretchedest Rymer in the universe! 


* * * * *x * * *K ca 


Revere the dead, the living let alone, 
But if, in spite of me, you must write on, 
Leave others’ works to criticise your own. 
Critics, cried he, are most of all unfit, 

To fill the peaceful throne of awful wit.” 


Similarly Dennis is introduced in the “ Battle of the 
Poets”? (1725), and, of course, the critics play a part in 
the “ Dunciad.” By that time no satire on the literary 
world could leave out this newly important class. 

This increased interest in printed criticism was evidently 
accompanied by a great deal of talk on similar subjects. 
To the “wit” the satirist now added the “ critic ” in his 
gallery of town characters, and nothing is more frequent 
in prologues than an appeal to these pretended critics 
who make criticism a new and fashionable foppery. Sed- 
ley, for instance, in his prologue to ‘The Mulberry Gar- 
den” (1668), complains of: 


. “The cruel critick and malicious wit, 
Who think themselves undone if a play hit.” 


So fashionable had literary criticism become that the 
Beau, if he had not taste, was obliged to counterfeit. it. 
This may be illustrated by a story which is not, I believe, 
very well known. It was said that a certain man, anxious 
to shine in this respect, discovered that the Earl of Dorset 


66 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


turned down the edge of pages containing passages which 
he liked, and that the pretender, who had access to Dorset’s 
books, achieved a reputation for taste by commending in 
company the passages so marked. Dorset suspected him 
of the practice and turned down many pages in a very 
dull book, with the result that the would-be man of taste 
rushed to the coffee-houses and fell into raptures over a 
piece of very dull writing. Finally convinced that he had 
made a mistake, he gave himself away by crying out in 
a passion, “ That my L-d D-t had betrayed him out of 
spite and dog’s ear’d the book in the wrong places.’’* 

Certain men like Dorset and Pope’s friend Walsh seem 
to have founded a real reputation as talkers, while even — 
the criticisms of Saint-Evremond were written only for his 
private friends and afterwards pirated. The Coffee-house — 
or tavern was the central meeting place where these liter- 
ary discussions ordinarily took place. The “Censure of 
the Rota” and the “ Academy of the Athenian Virtuosi ” 
present burlesque pictures of a critical cabal, and in dia- — 
logues such as “ Wit for Money,” “The Impartial Critic,” — 
and Gildon’s ‘Comparison of the Two Stages” the dis- — 
putants usually retire to a tavern. The coffee-houses, we — 
learn from “The Reason of Mr. Bays’s Changing his Re- 
ligion”’ (1688), were commonly thought somewhat more ; 
respectable. 

The first of these Coffee-houses, each of which consti- 
tuted a public club, was opened in London in 1652, and © 
by the beginning of the eighteenth century three thousand 
were said to be open there.?, The crowd was very miscel- | 
laneous, but the critic was a familiar figure, as may be 
observed from an interesting pamphlet ‘ The Character 

1A Vindication of the English Stage Exemplified in the Cato 


of Mr. Addison. 1716. 
2 Boulton. The Amusements of Old London. 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 67 


of a Coffee-House”’ (1673). The company is described 
as consisting of “a silly fop and a worshipful Justice, 
—a worthy lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a rev- 
erend non-conformist and a canting mountebank, all 
blended together to compose an oglio of impertinence.” 
All met to read the gazette, to listen to the opinions of 
others, and to air their own. Along with the town wit, 
an arrant Hobbesite, who values himself chiefly on his 
knowledge of that part of the town that is not worth 
knowing, may be found “a cabal of kittling critics that 
have only learned to spit and mew.” A poet slips in to © 
hear his beloved work damned, and is glad he came 
incognito. 

So much for the satirist’s view. But at Will’s the great 
Dryden himself was easy of access and a little later 
Steele and Addison frequented Button’s. At the coffee- 
house where a man might idle away several hours at the 
cost of a few pence, the impecunious could secure that 
feeling of Olympian idleness from which the impulse to 
criticism is most likely to spring. How important this 
familiar interchange of ideas was in the development of 
critical literature is evinced by the frequency with which 
critical pamphlets are cast into the form of familiar 
dialogues. 

Though the critic made a great figure in the literary 
world, greater than he had ever done before, he was far 
from having his own way, and whether formal classicist or 
mere pamphleteer, was subject to many attacks. Though 
the classics were revered, the classical critic was fortu- 
nately not always followed by the dramatist, and his 
dogmas were frequently repudiated. In his ‘“ Upon 
Poetry,’”’? Sir William Temple made a dignified plea for 
the freedom of inspiration as opposed to submission to 

1 In Miscellanea. Second Part. 1690. 


68 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


the rules;“and as for the dramatists, they cared too much - 
for popular success to wish to jeopardize it by following 
too closely the doctrines of orthodox criticism. They 
bowed to the unities so far as to prune the Elizabethan 
exuberance which liked to spread a play over a whole 
lifetime and move the scenes over the whole face of the 
earth, and they felt that it was better as a rule to confine 
scenes to a relatively restricted area and the time to a 
few days; but they refused to cramp themselves as Hédelin, 
for instance, demanded, within the twenty-four hours of 
a natural day, or to follow Rymer’s precepts which would 
have converted the drama into something wholly removed 
from life. Like Moliére, the dramatists were inclined to 
laugh without asking if Aristotle forbade it, and like Lope 
de Vega to say that while classicism might be all very 
well, the audience would not stand for it, and that it was 
“St. James’ beaux and Covent Garden rakes ” rather than 
the learned whom they had to please. And it was well 
that they did so, for in France, as Saint-Evremond com- 
plains, ‘‘ on n’a jamais vu tant de régles pour faire des belles 
tragédies; et on en fait si peu, qu’on est obligé de re- 
presenter les vielles.” M. d’Aubignac had boasted that his 
unsuccessful play followed everywhere the rules of Aris- 
totle, but “Je sais bon gré a M. d’Aubignac, dit M. le 
Prince, d’avoir si bien suivi les régles d’Aristote; mais je 
ne pardonne point aux régles d’Aristote d’avoir fait faire une 
si méchante tragédie a M. d’Aubignac.”’? Or, as the same 
idea was expressed in English: ? ‘I would no more excuse 
a dull rogue that should entertain me ill by the rules of 
Aristotle and Horace, than a physician who should in- 


1 Quoted by Ker in preface to Essays of John Dryden. 
2 Chit-Chat — A Comedy. Quoted in Critical Remarks on the — 
Four Taking Plays of the Season. (1719). 


CRITIC AND AMATEUR 69 


crease my disease, by the rules of Hippocrates and Galen.” 
Samuel Butler expresses his opinion thus: 


“ Whoever will regard poetic fury, 
When it is once found idiot by a jury; 
And every pert and arbitrary fool 
Can all poetic license overrule; 
Assume a barbarous tyranny to handle 
The muses worse than Ostro-goth or Vandal; 
Make ’em submit to verdict and report, 
And stand or fall to th’ order of a court? 
* * * * * * * * * 


Reduce all tragedy by rules of art 

Back to its antique theater, a cart, 

And make ’em henceforth keep the beaten roads 
Of reverend choruses and episodes; 

Reform and regulate a puppet-play, 

According to the true and ancient way, 

That not an actor shall presume to squeak 

Unless he have a license for’t in Greek. 


x * * * 2K ok * * 2K 


These are the reformations of the stage, 

Like other reformations of the age, 

On purpose to destroy all wit and sense, 

As th’ other did all laws and conscience; 

* * * * * * * * * 


An English poet should be try’d b’ his Peers 
And not by pedants and philosophers, 
Incompetent to judge poetic fury, 

As witches are forbid to b’ of a jury.’ 1 


Ever since the critic has existed, he has been the mark 
of the author’s scorn. His trade seems to consist in a 


1 From Butler’s posthumous works. Pub. 1759 in “ Genuine 
Remains of Samuel But'er,” and by Spingarn in his Critical Essays 
of the Seventeenth Century. I have modernized the spelling. 
Butler expressed his unfavorable opinion of the critics in other 
works as well. 


70 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


double impertinence — that of telling his betters what they 
should write, and his equals what they should like — and 
all the hard things that could be said about him were said 
in the latter seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. 
He was generally regarded (and in the case of Rymer and 
Dennis there was some basis for the opinion) as an unsuc- 
cessful writer who out of malice took to abusing the works 
of others. Another charge often made was that the critic 
wrote only to make money, and that criticism existed only 
for the purpose of being sold. Thus Swift: 
“ Read all the prefaces of Dryden, 
For these our critics much confide in; 


Though merely write at first for filling, 
To raise the volume’s price a shilling.” 1 


Pope expresed the same idea.’ 


“Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; 
I never answered —I was not in debt. 
If want provoked, or madness made them print, 
I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.” 


~ 


Dullness and ill nature were held to be the critic’s dis- q 


tinguishing characteristics. Swift in the “ Battle of the 
Books ” makes criticism the child of Ignorance and Pride 
and describes her as having claws like a cat but a head, 
ears, and voice like an ass. Garth thought the only use 
of critics was to display authors by contrast: 


“So diamonds take a lustre from their foil 
And to a Bentley ’tis, we owe a Boyle.” 


But perhaps Gay ® gave the crowning insult: 


“ Here sauntring ’prentices o’er Otway weep, 
O’er Congreve smile, or over D(ennis) sleep.’ 4 


1 Poetry. A Rhapsody. 
2 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. 
3 Trivia. II. 


4 It is possible however that the “ D——” refers to D’Urfey. 


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CRITIC AND AMATEUR 71 


Yet in spite of the stiff-necked dogmatism of many of 
its professors, and in spite of the contemptuous opposition 
of some of the wits, criticism was winning its battle for 
recognition as a living force, and in the years from 1660, 
when comedy was achieving a brilliant success without 
troubling itself much about some of the fundamental doc- 
trines of the pseudo-classicists, criticism was gradually, 
by continual repetition, impressing on the public mind 
certain ideas which the reformers were to seize upon and 
turn against the prevailing style of comedy. Those of 
its dogmas which concern us chiefly, and which will be 
treated in the next chapter, are as follows: 

1. The fundamental purpose of literature is to teach 
morality. 

2. It is the duty of the tragic, and perhaps the comic 
poet, to distribute poetic justice. 

3. Decorum demands that types be presented in ac- 
cordance with their typical rather than their occasional 
characteristics. 

4. Obscenity is a fault of taste. 


cas] 
CHAPTER IV 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 


Very few imaginative writers in whose minds the desire — 
to give moral instruction was always uppermost have ever 
produced great literature and very few people ever read 
great literature primarily because it gave them explicit 
moral instructions. Yet in spite of these facts, the com- — 
monest of all critical doctrines is that such instruction is 
the fundamental purpose of literature. The theory of art 
for art’s sake has never been popular because it is a part 
of a doctrine that, however consistently acted upoil, people 
have generally been loath to admit — namely, that pleasure — 
is the highest good. | | 

That literature pleases has usually not been enough to — 
satisfy the philosopher, and when the problem has been — 
consciously thought about, the tendency has been either, — 
as in Plato’s “ Republic,” to expel the poet, or, as with — 
the pseudo-classicists, to give him a moral function. The ~ 
justification of the poet is the beginning of literary criti- 
cism in the Renaissance. That the purpose of literature 
was the teaching of morality was the common belief of the — 
ancients; it finds expression in Plutarch and in Horace, ~ 
while Strabo mentions the existence of dissent on this point. — 
Aristotle (Poetics, Chap. IV) in saying “the end of the , 
fine arts is to give pleasure or rather enjoyment” is dis- — 
tinctly heterodox, for the commonly accepted idea was that © 
the end was instruction.1 With the coming of Christianity — 
the task of defending literature became more and more 

1 Butcher. Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art. 
72 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 73 


urgent, for literature was pagan. When, during the 
Renaissance, criticism received a new birth, the critics “ set 
themselves to prove that poetry was not a sweet pleasant 
deceit or corrupting influence in the republic, but a strong- 
hold and rampart of religion and philosophical truth.” * 
To them poetry was simply philosophy in a more persua- 
sive form, and the delight which it offered was only a sugar 
coating to the bitter pill of “ doctrine.” 

When English criticism was born, it showed no tendency 
to be unorthodox. Ascham denounced the popular ro- 
mances and tales on the ground of immorality, and with 
Sidney’s ““An Apologie for Poetrie ”’ we have a systematic 
presentation of the conventional view. It had been written 
(about 1580-5) as a reply to Gosson’s “ The School of 
Abuse,” which had spoken of “ poets, pipers, players, 
jesters and such like caterpillars of a commonwealth.” 
Poetry, by which Sidney means all imaginative literature, 
is, he says, a speaking picture made to teach and delight. 
The end of all knowledge is virtuous action, which philoso- 
phy undertakes to teach by precept, history by example, 
and law formidine poenae rather than virtutis amore. But 
the precepts of the philosopher are cold, and the historian 
is handicapped by facts, while the poet may present a 
perfect and moving picture of what should be. If he fails 
to do so, he is perverting his art, but the abuse of his 
power is no argument against its legitimate use. Sidney 
himself lamented that the ‘ Naughtie Play-Makers and. 
Stage-Keepers” had justly made comic poetry odious. 
Poetry is in itself good, he says, but in these days its power 
is abused. This is the burden of the usual treatise on 
poetry, and here is the first systematic and permanent 
expression in English of this orthodox doctrine. As such, 
it must have had considerable influence in making the 

1 Saintsbury. A History of Criticism. Vol. II. 


74 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


conventional view of critics familiar to Englishmen. — 
Rymer refers to Sidney (Preface to Rapin’s Reflections), 
and, in connection with the “ Arcadia,” the “ Defense ” was 
published fourteen times between 1600 and 1700. More- 
over it was used in the Collier controversy. Filmer quotes 
it at length in his “‘ Defense of Plays.” 

As was said in the preceding chapter, Flecknoe’s “ Dis- 
course of the English Stage” (1664) was the first formal 
critical treatise to be published after the Restoration, and 
hence it was the first to present the conventional doctrine, 
though Cowley (Preface to the “Cutter of Coleman 
Street”) had already made a short defense of the stage. 
Speaking of the drama, Flecknoe says: “ Its chiefest end 
is to render folly ridiculous, vice odious and virtue and 
nobleness so amiable and lovely, as everyone should be 
delighted and enamoured with it: From which if it deflects, 
as corruptio optimi pessima, of the best it becomes the 
worst of recreation and this his majesty well understood 
when after his happy restoration he took such care to 
purge it from all vice and obscenity; and would to God 
he had found all bodies and humors as apt and easy to 
be purg’d and reform’d as that.” And we may quote 
again: + “I deny not but aspersions (these latter times) 
have been cast upon the stage by the ink of some who 
have written obscenely and scurrilously, etc. but instead of 
wiping them off, to break the glass, was too rigid and 
severe. For my part I have endeavored here the clearing 
of it, and restoring it to its former splendor, and first 
institution; (of teaching virtue, reproving vice, and amend- 
ment of manners) so as if the rest but imitate my example, 
those who shall be enemies of it hereafter, must declare 
themselves enemies of virtue, as formerly they did of vice: 
whence we may justly hope to see it restored again, with 


1 Love’s Dominion. 1654. 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 75 


the qualification of an honorable coadjutor of the pulpit, 
to teach morality, in order to the others divinity, and th’ 
moulding and tempering of mens’ minds for the better 
receiving the impressions of godliness.” Flecknoe’s state- 
ment in the same preface that Fletcher was the first to 
introduce into his plays “that witty obscenity ”’ which 
“like poison infused in pleasant liquor, is almost the most 
dangerous the more delightful” is interesting as correctly 
tracing to Fletcher the germ of that later style of dialogue 
which was so brilliant in manner and so corrupt in matter. 

I have ventured to quote these two long and clumsy 
passages merely because they happen to be the first ex- 
pression after the opening of our period of the idea com- 
monly held by people who were not practical playwrights. 
Neither Collier nor Steele was advancing novel ideas when 
he demanded a moralized stage. Each was engaged simply 
in stirring up the public to demand that the experiment 
(which turned out to be a disastrous one) should be made 
of consciously putting into practice the conventional 
theories. Thus the following, which is the opening sentence 
of Collier’s “ Short View,” would have struck no one fami- 
liar with the formal criticism of the times as in any way 
novel: ‘“‘ The business of plays is to recommend virtue, and , 
discountenance vice; to show the uncertainty of human 
greatness, the sudden turns of Fate, and the unhappy 
conclusions of violence and injustice: "Tis to expose the 
singularities of pride and fancy, to make folly and false- 
hood contemptible, and to bring every thing that is ill 
under infamy, and neglect.” Mr. John Palmer, in a book 
of excellent criticism of the Restoration comedy, maintains 
repeatedly that Jeremy Collier invented the moral test as 
applied to comedy. Nothing could be farther from the 
truth. One has but to read classical, Renaissance, and 
English critics to see that, far from being new, the demand 


76 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


that all literature must have a moral justification has been 
handed down from age to age and that to question it was 
to be heterodox. 

Rymer is equally uncompromising in his attitude. Ac- 
cording to him poetry’s end is to teach, and it delights 
only in order that it may teach. One can delight only by 
following the rules, and one can teach only if he delights; 
and so, ultimately, the purpose of following the rules is 
to make instruction possible. In the days of Aristophanes, 
he says, it was universally agreed that the best poet was 
he who had done most to make men virtuous. Horace, too, 
agrees with the Greek and provides the oft-quoted phrase, 
“Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae.” As schools 
are for teaching children, so the stage, says Rymer, should 
be a school for men of riper years and judgment, and hence 
the poet must see that his doctrine is good and wholesome. 
So important, he says, is the drama and its influence, that 
it should not be permitted except under the eye of a 
virtuous government, for otherwise it may degenerate until 
it deserves all that the clerics have said against it. Rymer 
was only following the French. ‘“ The end of any dis- 
course,” said Dacier, in the ‘ Essay on Satire” (trans. 
1692), “is the action for which the discourse is compos’d; 
when it produces no action, ’tis only a vain amusement, 

) Which idly tickles the ear, without ever reaching the heart.” 
ealely Dennis assumes these principles as self-evident, 
and it would be but repetition to quote him. 

From the formal critics no dissent was to be expected, 
but the playwrights who made their living by amusing an: 
actual audience were likely to dissent or to give only a 
formal assent, for the audience was more eager for amuse- 
ment than instruction, and if it got the one, it was not over 
particular about the other. Dryden, never very consistent 


s 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 77 


in his critical dogmas, and true now to his réle as dramatist 
and now as critic, vacillates on this point as has already 
been pointed out. When speaking generally he agrees with | 
the orthodox view, but when he comes to defend his own | 
practice, he switches about and doubts if instruction be 
after all a part of comedy. What Mrs. Behn said on 
the subject has already been pointed out. Shadwell, how- 
ever, was insistent in his championship of the orthodox 
view; though it may be doubted whether or not his com- 
edies tended much to the raising of the moral standard. 
Generally speaking, the Restoration writers of belles 
lettres, whether dramatic or otherwise, were not much con- - 
cerned with instruction. They gave formal assent to 
orthodox critical doctrine in much the same spirit that 
they accepted the teachings of the Church of England. A 
gentleman would hardly think of denying or practising 
either. ) 

Assuming, as the orthodox critics did, that the business 
of the poet was to teach virtue, the next step was to de- 
cide how this could best be accomplished. Aristotle’s doc- 
trine of Catharsis did not seem quite definite. The 
renaissance critic either expected frank didacticism or fell 
back upon allegorical interpretation. In England was de- 
veloped especially the theory to which Rymer first gave 
the name Poetic Justice. Tragedy, it was maintained, 
should instruct by showing the virtuous rewarded and the 
vicious punished according to a system more perfect than 
was observable in actual life. Whether or not this should 
be extended to comedy was doubtful. Rymer and Dennis 
thought not. They maintained that ridicule was the 
proper method of comedy. But Steele demanded that, in 
comedy as in tragedy, virtue must be rewarded and vice 
punished, so that the extension of poetic justice to comedy 


78 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


was one of the cardinal doctrines of his creed, and in fact 
a distinguishing characteristic of sentimental comedy. Ac- 
cordingly we shall examine the roots of this doctrine. 
Though Rymer seems to have been the first to use the 
phrase “ Poetic Justice,” the idea was extremely old. 
Essentially it is the idea that things are to be presented 
not as they are, but as they ought to be, and this idea 
is found in classical thought, and influenced even the writ- 
ing of history. Tacitus himself, though condemning the 
historian of the empire who lied for the purpose of flattery, 
“does not forbid the shaping of a story according to 
artistic probability and moral end.”? Similarly, the world 


as it ought to be is the essence of Plato, and a kindred — 


idea, as applied to literature, finds expression in Aristotle 
who, though he does not exactly recommend poetic justice, 
maintains that tragedy presents things not as they are 
but as they ought to be. 

In England the doctrine grows more explicit from Sidney 
to Jonson, and receives final expression with Rymer. 
In Sidney it is fully implied. Some poets, he says, borrow 
nothing of what is, but rise into. divine consideration of 
what might be. While the historian is tied down to what 
actually is, the freedom of the poet gives him greater 
liberty to teach, and hence there is more doctrine to be 
learned from the latter’s method. The historian, being 
limited to facts, must often give a bad example by con- 
fessing that vice triumphs; but “If evil men come to 


the stage, they ever go out (as the tragedy writer answered — 
to one that misliked the shew of such persons) so manacled, — 


as they little animate folks to follow them. But the his- 
torian, being captived to the truth of a foolish world, is 
many times a terror from well doing, and an encouragement 


1 See Boissier, Tacite. Cited by H. Osborn Taylor. The Mediae- 
val Mind. I. 


‘ 
a 
*. 
} 
‘ 

+ 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 79 


to unbridled wickedness.” Jonson (dedication of ‘“ Vol- 
pone”’) comes very close to the actual words “ Poetic Jus- 
tice’ when in defending the punishment of the villainous 
character in this comedy he employs the phrase “ it being 
the office of a comic poet to imitate justice and instruct to 
life.’ This very phrase was quoted by Collier? in his 
attack on the contemporary stage. 

It is in “ The Tragedies of the Last Age” (1678) that 
Rymer gives final expression to the theory. The ancients, 
he says, rejected history for the fable of a tragedy be- 
cause they found that in history the same end happens to 
the just and the unjust, and saw often wickedness triumph- 
ant and virtue oppressed. They realized that such mon- 
strous occurrences represented only particular incidents and 
not the universal and eternal truths which it is the business 
of the poet to present, and, accordingly, they neglected 
history and chose stories in which they were not tied to 
facts, but were able to distribute ‘‘ Poetic Justice ” accord- 
ing to eternal truth. The theater, he says, was wont to 
be called the school of virtues, but no longer deserves this 
title because poetic justice is neglected. To say that a 
play is natural he considers no excuse for it, since it is the 
business of the poet to represent typical or eternal nature; 
and individual instances where the great laws of poetic 
justice are violated represent only a partial view of nature 
and not its eternal truth. 

The extreme to which this theory was carried is well 
illustrated by Dennis in his “ Remarks upon Cato” 
(1713). He writes: “ ’Tis certainly the duty of every tragic 
poet, by an exact distribution of poetical justice, to imitate 
the divine dispensation, and to inculcate a particular 
providence. ’Tis true indeed upon the stage of the world 
that the wicked sometimes prosper, and the guiltless suffer. 

1 Defense of the Short View, etc. 1699. 


80 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


But that is permitted by the governor of the world, to show 
from the attribute of his infinite justice that there is a 
compensation in futurity, to prove the immortality of the 
human soul, and the certainty of future rewards and pun- 
ishment. But the poetical persons in tragedy exist no 
longer than the reading or the representation; the whole 
extent of their entity is circumscribed by those; and there- 
fore during that reading or representation, according to 
their merits or demerits, they must be punish’d or re- 
warded.”’ Applying this principle to “ Cato,’ he says: 
“That Cato’s being writ with a design to support liberty, 
is an objection of no manner of force; that let the design 
be what it will, the effect is sure to be contrary; that the 
shewing a man of consummate virtue unfortunate only for 
supporting liberty, must of necessity in a free nation be 
a pernicious consequence, and must justly raise the highest 
indignation in all true lovers of liberty.” 

The dogmatist, enamoured with the specious logic of 
this theory, seemed blind to its essential childishness. 
That virtue should be emulated only because it is thought 
profitable, and that no one could be expected to admire the 
dignity of right triumphant even in defeat, is a character- 
istic eighteenth century opinion; but to suppose that an 


audience thus minded would be encouraged by a picture - 


of virtue triumphant to seek virtue in hope of reward 
when the picture was admittedly at variance with the facts 
of life, is simply infantile. If a man in actual life is 
supposed to be influenced by the reflection that his mis- 
fortunes are merely a device employed by God for the 
purpose of proving that there must exist a compensative 
future, it is not at all clear why this “same man cannot 
apply similar reasoning to an imaginary representation of 
distressed virtue unless, indeed, belief in God is considered 
impossible in the theater. If one insists on drawing a 


’ 
| 
‘i 
i 
f 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 81 


moral from history or literature it had better be, not that 
justice is triumphant and virtue rewarded, but that no 
righteousness can assure success, and that one had best 
prepare himself for endurance. Addison, indeed (Spec- 
tator 40), attacks the absurdity of poetic justice, observing 
truly that ‘“ We find that good and evil happen alike to all 
men on this side of the grave’’; but in spite of its artifi- 
ciality, poetic justice became one of the cardinal doctrines 
of orthodox poetic theory. Thus in 1699 Drake?* speaks 
of “ Poetic Justice, which has now become the principal 
article of the drama,” though he remarks that Aristotle is 
so far from teaching it that he recommends as most 
suitable for tragedy the story of the misfortunes of a 
person unhappy through his mistakes not his fault, which 
is quite contrary to the principle that a man must be given 
an end nicely adjusted to the merit of his character. 
Aristotle does say that tragedy should not represent the | 
downfall of a perfectly good man, but his approval of 
“Oedipus” shows that he allowed considerable latitude. 
Nevertheless, as will be seen later, poetic justice continued 
to receive ardent support from theorists. 

Though the doctrine of poetic justice seems palpably 
absurd, it must be admitted in fairness that the whole 
question is bound up with, and receives support from, 
Plato; for to the Platonist the contrast between things as 
they are and things as they ought to be is not a contradic- 
tion, as the rationalists would have it, between truth and 
falsehood, but merely between higher and lower truth, the 
things as they ought to be being ideally more general and 
true than the incidental and temporary things as they are. 

At first poetic justice was thought to be chiefly the 
concern of tragedy. Jonson, though it is in the preface to 
“Volpone”’ that he develops the idea, thinks a certain 

1 The Ancient and Modern Stages Survey’d. 


82 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


amount of apology necessary to defend its use in comedy, 
and Dennis himself is inclined to believe that laughter is 
' a sufficient punishment for the wicked in comedy. Steele, 
however, demanded the extension of the principle to 
comedy, and in the sentimental plays the pleasure arising 
from the spectacle of virtue finally triumphant was, in a 
large measure, to supplant the pleasure of laughter. The 
influence of Moliére in establishing the tradition that the 
evil doer in comedy should be punished may be suggested. 
Miles? points out that he sometimes, though not consis- 
tently, employs poetic justice, and attention is called to 
the similarity between the situation in “L’Ecole des 
Femmes,” where Arnolphe reaps but little reward for his 
unenlightened attempt to secure the fidelity of his wife, and 
that in “ The Country Wife,’ where Pinchwife marries 
an innocent country girl so as to be sure to have her all 
to himself, but is destined to suffer from the intimacy 
between her and the suggestively named Horner. It will 
be seen that the doctrine of Poetic Justice plays an im- | 
portant part in the Collier controversy. 

The relevance to our subject of the third of the critical 
dogmas enumerated at the end of the last chapter—_ 
namely the duty of the poet to present characters according 
to their typical rather than occasional characteristics — - 
is not immediately evident. But in his attack on con- 
' temporary plays Collier devotes considerable space to a 
consideration of the abuse of the nobility and clergy, and 
execrates the poets because they sometimes represent a 
lord as an ass. His opponents replied that sometimes 
lords were asses, and to understand why this reply seemed 
irrelevant, it is necessary to go back to Horace and his 
commentators. 

In the Art of Poetry, Horace had said: 


1 The Influence of Moliére on Restoration Comedy. 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 83 


“..If you bring great Achilles on the stage, 
Let him be fierce and brave, all ire and rage, 
Inflexible, and headstrong to all laws, 

But those, which arms and his own will impose. 
Ixion must be treacherous, Ino grieved, 

Io must wonder, and Orestes rave. 

But if you dare to tread in paths unknown, 
And boldly start new persons of your own; 

Be sure to make them in one strain agree, 
And let the end like the beginning be.” 1 


With their usual over-literalness and their passion for 
definition, the commentators made this general principle 
into a set system, and the general features of every char- 
acter were analyzed and described, so that the poet was 
presented with formulae from which he must not vary, for 
the composition of all stock characters. ‘ In Minturno 
and Scaliger we find every detail of character minutely 
analyzed. The poet is told how young men and old men 
should act, should talk, and should dress; and no devia- 
tions from these fixed formulae were allowed under any 
circumstances.” ” | 

Rymer brings this idea into England and turns it against 
Shakespeare in an astounding manner. In his attack on 
“Othello,” he falls upon Iago with particular vehemence, 
calling him the most intolerable thing in the whole play, 
because he is not like a soldier. Shakespeare has been 
guilty of representing him as crafty and under-handed, 
when every one from Horace on has known that a soldier 
should be “ impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer.”” Shake- 
speare, fully conscious that he was inconsistent, was deter- 
mined to do something surprising “ against common sense, 
and nature” by presenting a soldier who deviated from 


1 Oldham’s translation. 
2 Spingarn. A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance. 
Chap. III. 


84 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


the type. It must be remembered, of course, that by 
“nature ’ Rymer did not mean particular, but general or 
typical nature. He recognized that a crafty soldier might 
exist, but would insist that such a one was the exception 
rather than the rule, and hence that he should not be 
represented on the stage, where only general truths should 
be presented. 

Here, then, is the key to Collier’s position in regard 
to the indignities offered to the nobility and clergy. While 
it is perfectly true that you may here and there find a lord 
who is an ass, asininity is not commonly regarded as the 
typical and distinguishing characteristic of the nobility, 
and to represent a lord so, instead of showing him as 
noble in accordance with the typical characteristic of a 
lord, is, he thinks, but another illustration of the general 
perversity of the dramatist. The same argument applies 
a fortior. to the clergy. In this connection it should be 
noticed that Horace had not said that all soldiers should 
be represented as he described Achilles, but this sublime 
leap from the particular to the general is in accordance — 
with the general method of the pseudo-classicists in deal- 
ing with ancient authors. 

The fourth and last of the dogmas which were developed 
during the latter part of the century, and which formed 
a weapon to be used in the determined attack on con- 
temporary dramatic practices, is that which declares ob- — 
scenity a fault of taste. It may as well be admitted 
frankly that in the practice of the Restoration dramatists — 
nothing was more characteristic than habitual lewdness 
of language. Whatever the matter in hand, and whatever — 
differences may have existed in the shades of their motives, © 
whether they were frankly appealing to the lasciviousness 
of their audience or whether, as at times was the case, they © 
seemed animated by genuine if transitory disgust with men ~ 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 85 


or manners, the language in which they expressed them- 
selves was always the plainest and most particular that 
could be found, for they were inspired with a passion for 
revealing all that convention ordinarily veiled. Moreover, 
even when the subject under discussion was as far removed 
as possible from the sexual, they habitually chose meta- 
phors and turns of expression that would bring in a com- 
parison from the subject which seems to have been usually 
uppermost in their minds. A single instance from Dryden 
will illustrate this familiar phenomenon. It is the prologue 
to “ An Evening’s Love,” as clever as any piece of writing 
Dryden ever did, but unprintable. The technique of ex- 
pression which he uses there was conventional. 

The critics, however, frowned upon obscenity not only 
because it was definitely antagonistic to the purpose of 


literature (which was moral instruction), but also because 2 
it was a fault of taste. This idea, though a common one, ~ 


was given epigrammatic expression in Mulgrave’s “An 
Essay upon Poetry,’ where, referring to Rochester, he 
wrote: 
“ Here, as in all things else, is most unfit 

Bare ribaldry, that poor pretence to wit; 

Such nauseous songs by a late author made 

Call an unwilling censure on his shade. 

Not that one thought of the transporting Joy, 

Can shock the chastest, or the nicest cloy; 

But obscene words, too gross to move desire, 

Like heaps of fuel do but choke the fire. 

On other scenes he well deserves our praise, 

But cloys that appetite it meant to raise.” 


It is especially worthy of note that the quotations which 
have been given to illustrate the orthodox view regarding 


literature and morals came without exception from men. 
who were not successful dramatists, and who were in 


nearly every case out of sympathy with the drama of their 


86 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


time. Sidney not only did not write plays but condemned 
the popular drama of his time, while Flecknoe, Rymer and 


Dennis were unsuccessful dramatists. As to the play- 


wrights themselves, they were usually interested only in 
providing plays which would be successful and which 
would satisfy their own artistic consciences. If one looks 
at Congreve’s letter “Of Humor in Comedy’? he will 
see that Congreve is interested in discussing what a cul- 
tured man considers funny, but that he has not one word 
to say about morality. Among critics, perhaps St. Evre- 
mond. was closest to the literary group to which his gay, 
polished and epicurean spirit made him closely akin. His 
criticisms were written for private circulation only, but 
were so much admired that they were printed in pirated 
editions, and forged writings were sold under the attraction 
of his name. But like Congreve, when he writes an essay 
on English comedies? he tries them upon purely aesthetic 
grounds. That the Restoration dramatists cared nothing 
for the moral aspect of their work is a commonplace, but 
it is a commonplace which takes on a significance when we 
observe, first that in so doing they were in a way hetero- 
dox, and second that Steele and Cibber, the leaders in the 
sentimental movement, proclaimed their allegiance to 
orthodox criticism. In other words, sentimental comedy 
when strggling for supremacy could call upon orthodox 
criticism for support. 

It has already been shown that the Restoration dramatist 
was sometimes, when pressed, forced to admit the validity 
of the theory which regarded literature as a form of moral 
instruction; but such an admission was made _ usually 
as a defense, and abandoned both in practice and, often, 

1 Letters upon several occasions; written by and. between Mr. 


Dryden, Mr. Wycherley, Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Dennis, etc. 1696. 
2 In Mizt Essays, etc. 1685. 


SOME CRITICAL DOGMAS 87 


in more frank expressions of theory. He believed that the 
value of a piece of literature should be judged rather by 
the effectiveness and polish of its expression than by the 
value of its subject matter. This attitude was expounded 
in an extreme form by Robert Wolseley in his preface to 
Rochester’s tragedy “ Valentinian” (1685), which had been 
attacked by Mulgrave in his “ Essay on Poetry ” on the 
ground that it was obscene. Wolseley maintains that the 
manner of treatment, not the subject matter, must be the ’ 
basis for any judgment passed upon a work of literature. 
No one, he says, except Mulgrave, ever thought of judging 
a poet by the worth of his subject matter, inasmuch as an 
ill poet will disgrace the highest subject just as a good 
poet will dignify the lowest. Growing enthusiastic over 
his own theory, he exclaims: ‘“ Nay, the baser, the emptier, 
the obscurer, the fouler, and less susceptible of ornaments 
the subject appears to be, the more the poet’s praise, who 
ean hide all the natural deformities in the fashion of his 
dress, supply all the wants with his own plenty, and by a 
poetical daemoniasm possess it with the spirit of good 
sense and gracefulness.” He then draws support for his 
theory from the kindred art of painting, and quotes Dry- 
den’s preface to “ Tyrannic Love” where the latter says 
that there is as much art in the representation of a lazar 
as ina Venus. Wolseley defines wit as “a true and lively 
expression of nature” and then proceeds ingeniously to 
reduce Mulgrave’s censure to nonsense. Mulgrave char- 
acterized Rochester’s work as “ bawdry bare-face’d, that 
poor pretense to wit,” and Wolseley, working like a mathe- 
matician with his equations, substitutes for “wit” his 
definition of it, and reads, “ bawdry bare-face’d, that poor 
pretense to a true and lively expression of nature,” which 
is, as he says, manifestly nonsense. Again he takes Dry- 
den’s definition of wit as “a propriety of thought and 


88 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


words” and again reduces Mulgrave’s. phrase to an 
absurdity. 

This is all very interesting and probably represents very 
well the attitude of the typical Restoration dramatist or 
poet, but it was not the conventional critical view adopted 
by Collier when he wrote “ Smuttiness is a fault in be- 
haviour as well as in religion. ”Tis a very coarse diversion, 
the entertainment of those who are generally least both in 
sense, and station,’? or by Cibber when he spoke in “ The 
Careless Husband” of former plays as “unfit entertain- 
ments for people of quality.” The Sentimental comedy 
was more orthodox critically than that of the Restoration. 


1 Short View. 


CHAPTER V 
THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 


THE deep-seated distrust of the theater, which at dif- 
ferent times finds more or less passionate expression, is in 
itself perpetual. It is more deep-rooted than Christianity, 
and arises as a logical application of the much more 
ancient doctrine of asceticism. As the seventeenth century 
controversialist was fond of pointing out, not only did the 
early church Fathers thunder against the theater, but the 
sterner sort of Pagans, from whom surely less was to be 
expected than from Christians, were at best doubtful con- 
cerning it. True, Aristotle wrote a treatise on the drama, 
but Plato banished the players from the Republic, and 
even in the actual government of the ancients there were 
many statutes which implied that the theater was regarded 
at best with suspicion. 

With the coming of Christianity, asceticism received a 
support of incalculable strength. The ancient philosophers 
had urged the contempt of pleasure because pleasure was 
undignified, and because in the end it was found to be 
really not pleasure—a doctrine which the vulgar found 
it difficult to understand. Christianity, however, appealed 
to less rarefied sentiment. The man who found the pleas- 
ures of earth sweet was not asked to give them up for 
nothing, but was persuaded that for a little self-denial in 
the present he would be rewarded with incalculable blisses 
in the future, whereas, if he persisted in the short-sighted 
policy of choosing the unimportant present, his folly 
would be rewarded with torture more terrible and enduring 

89 


90 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


than any which Caligula had been ingenious enough to 
invent. Though the latter had given instructions that his 
victims were to be made to “feel themselves die,” he 
was incapable of inflicting a perpetuity of pain, for to him 
man was mortal, a fact which imposed a limitation that 
God was able to transcend. Thus many a man unable 
to follow the Stoic in the contempt of pleasure was ap- 
pealed to on prudential grounds and resolved, like a sensi- 
ble man, to take some thought of the future. In this 
manner asceticism became a religion not only for the 
philosopher but also for the rabble. 

With such a condition established, opposition to the 
theater was inevitable. Fundamentally the objection was 
not to bad plays—to indecency and profaneness — though 
of course these aggravated the evil; but to plays as such, 
and, indeed, to all art; for the beautiful is the pleasant, 
and the pleasant is damnable. This life is, a priori, a vale 
of tears, and any attempt to make it otherwise is sinful. 
Moreover any interest in the affairs of the world is danger- 
ous. The more one can withdraw from life the safer he 
is. The wise man will, therefore, live in seclusion, and — 
only a madman will, after all the temptations which livmg — 
in the world necessitates, seek to increase them by allow- 
ing imagination to strengthen his interest in the world. 
Even with the utmost care it is hard to conquer the — 
passions, and art, instead of teaching men to despise the — 
world, is likely to lead them to love it.t 

The bearing of these general ideas upon seventeenth- — 


century controversies will be seen later on, when it will — 


be evident that the movement for the reform of indecency 
-was confused and even hindered by the introduction of a — 
purely ascetic element, and that those who wished to 


1 Tolstoi’s What is Art might be cited as a modern example of — 
somewhat similar reasoning. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 91 


purify the stage were joined in a somewhat unstable union 
_ with those who wished to destroy it. Two chapters have 
been devoted to giving the critical background of the 
reformers. ‘These brief paragraphs will have to suffice to 
suggest the ascetic tendency which was constantly arising 
to confuse the issue. 

This moral and ascetic objection to the theater, though 
it constantly exists, is not always very strongly felt. 
Today, no doubt, the question engages the attention of 
many provincial pulpits, but, as at most times, it hardly 
reaches the theater-going public. At various times, how- 
ever, some circumstance or other has aroused it to greater 
vigor. It has then ceased to be an undercurrent and be- 
come a matter. of universal attention. Two such periods 
occur in English literary history. The first began even 
before the Elizabethan drama entered upon its period of 
glory, and ended in a complete triumph for the enemies of 
the stage, when the theaters were closed in 1642. But 
this particular movement against the theater was so closely 
associated with the political and religious fortunes of the 
Puritans that when that class suffered defeat the theaters 
were reopened as a matter of course. In 1662, long after 
the author’s death, was published ‘ Theatrum Redivivum,” 
written by Sir Richard Baker in answer to Prynne. The 
ordinary arguments—namely, that the Bible nowhere 
forbids plays, that the Pagans and early Christians who 
opposed the theater opposed only its corruption, and that 
vices exhibited on the stage are only to teach virtue — 
were advanced, but were hardly necessary. Opposition to 
the theater was so closely associated with Puritanism that 
its Wrongness was assumed. For some time after the Res- 
toration one would scarcely have dared raise again the old 
arguments, for they would have smacked too much of dis- 
loyalty. Even some forty years later, when the controversy 


92 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


was revived, it was remarked that the last time a party 
had torn down the stage in the city it had set up a 
scaffold in the court, and though the stage has seldom been 
so licentious as it was during the Restoration, opposition 
was but tentative and sporadic between 1660 and 1698. 
Opposition was neither dead nor completely inactive, 
though it found no one with sufficient energy to make it a 
leading issue until Jeremy Collier, a non-juring divine, 
already famous, gathered together all the weapons, reli- 
gious, moral, and ascetic, that could be turned against the 
stage, and flung himself upon it with a fury and an exulta- 
tion that seems to have left the wits momentarily stunned. 


But he called forth a great and very miscellaneous com-' 


pany of wits, critics, philosophers, and fanatics who fell 
upon one another in a most undignified battle-royal through 
which no one really distinguished himself except Collier. 
He alone is much remembered, but he achieved a fame that 
has lasted faintly, though genuinely, until today, when his 
other writings and his political exploits have not even the 
semblance of that popular fame which in some manner 
does attach to his work as an opponent of the stage. 
Before discussing this battle, it will be well to devote a 
few pages to the opinions concerning the stage which found 
expression between 1660 and 1698. 

There has been perhaps too great a tendency to regard 
the Collier controversy as something wholly unexpected 
and unprepared for, and to think that his attack was an 
isolated phenomenon in the history of late seventeenth- 
century literature. Such was not the case. Neither satire, 
sermon, nor essay had failed to touch upon the subject, 
and what distinguished Collier was. determination and 
vigor rather than originality of idea. The political odium 
attached to Puritanism, and popular knowledge that the 
court was at least as bad as the stage, naturally tended to 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 93 


make comment less severe, but it was nevertheless made. 
Pepys, a constant play-goer, was often shocked at the im- 
morality of the court, but he does not seem to have been 
much disturbed by the reflection of contemporary im- 
morality on the stage, and Evelyn finds “ Love in a Tub” 
merely a facetious comedy. The latter, however, enters 
a protest that many must have felt when he writes to 
Viscount Cornbery in February 1664-5.? . 

Part of the letter is worth quoting. ‘It [playing] is 
not allow’d in any city of christendom so much as in this 
one town of London, where there are more wretched and 
obscene plays permitted than in all the world beside. 
At Paris three days, at Rome two weekly, and at the other 
cities of Florence, Venice, etc., but at certain jolly periods 
of the year, and that not without some considerable emolu- 
ment to the public; whiles our enterludes here are every 
day alike; so as the ladies and the gallants come reeking 
from the play late on Saturday night, to their Sunday 
devotions; the ideas of the farce possesses their fancies to 
the infinite prejudice of devotion, besides the advantages 
it gives to our reproachful blasphemers. ... You know, 
my Lord, that I (who have written a play and am a 
Scurvy poet too sometimes) am far from Puritanism; but 
I would have no reproach left our adversaries in a thing 
which may so conveniently be reform’d. Plays are now 
with us become a licentious excess, and a vice, and need 
severe censors that should look as well to their morality, 
as to their lines and numbers.” 

Burnet too, whose history though not published until 
after his death was written many years before, expresses 

disapproval. He speaks of the stage as the great corrupter 

1 Diary, April 27, 1664. 

2 Memoirs of John Evelyn, Esq., F.R.S. Edited by Bray, 1827. 
Vol. IV. 


94 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


of the town, and the bad people of the town as the chief 
corrupters of the stage. ‘It is a shame,” he writes, “ to 
our nation and religion, to see the stage so reformed in 
France, and so polluted in England; Moliére for comedy, 
and Racine for tragedy, are patterns; few can, and few 
will study to copy after them. But, ’till another scene 
appears, certainly our plays are the greatest debauchers of 
the nation.” ? 

The anonymous author of “A Defense of Dramatic 
Poetry ” (1698) remarks that if the drama is as bad as 
Collier says it is, then one must conclude from the “ uni- 
versal silence of the whole clergy ” on the matter that they 
have been negligent in their Christian duty. But as the 
author of ‘The Stage Condemn’d” (1698) pointed out, 
this, also, is hardly accurate. He cites the case of Samuel 
Wesley, who recently at St. James’s Church, Westminster, 
and also at St. Brides, had anticipated Collier and declared 
that “our infamous theaters seem to have done more mis- 
chief than Hobbs himself, or our new Atheistical Clubs to 
the faith and morals of the nation.” Moreover, Baxter in 
his “ Christian Directory ” (1673) had written: ‘I think 
I never knew or heard of a lawful stage play, comedy or 
tragedy in the age that I have liv’d, and that those now 
commonly used are not only sins, but heinous aggravated 
sins.” The popular Dr. Anthony Horneck had also con- 
demned contemporary plays in the second edition of his 
‘“Sirenes” (2nd ed. 1690) by including them under the 
general heading of revellings which are condemned by the 
Scriptures, while Dr. Bray, in his sermon on the baptismal 
covenant, had specifically mentioned the stage as one of 
the things renounced in the baptismal vows.? Attention 
should also be called to Archbishop Tillotson’s famous ser- 


1 History of His Own Times. 1724-34. Vol. II. 
2 Preached in 1697. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 95 


mon “ On the Evil of Corrupt Communication,” which the 
controversialists quoted from; for, though he refuses to con- 


demn plays in toto, he declares that they are in their 


present form intolerable and not fit to be permitted in a 
civilized, much less a Christian, community. Moreover, 
as will be seen from a succeeding chapter, the Societies 
for the Reformation of Manners had, as early as 1694, 
advocated the suppression of the theater. 

Nor were there wanting lay writers who criticised the 
immorality of the stage and who may be regarded as 
forerunners of Collier, since the ground which they took 
was much the same as that in the earlier portions of his 
book. Consequently they will serve to show that his im- 
portance depends rather upon his vigor and freshness of 
application than on his originality. Johanes Ballein in his 
book “Jeremy Colliers Angriff auf die Englische Buhne” 
takes the preface to Sir Richard Blackmore’s “ Prince 
Arthur ” (1695) as the first of these preliminary skirmishes, 
but this is hardly correct. ‘ The Country Conversations ”’ 
of James Wright (1694) has also been mentioned by 
other writers, and I should like to add two others which 
I believe have never been mentioned in this connection 
before: namely “ The Playhouse. A Satire” (1689), by 
Robert Gould, and the anonymous “A Reflection on our 
Modern Poesie” (1695), which is, in a way, more inter- 
esting than any of the other four works. All are dis- 
tinguished, though perhaps somewhat indistinctly, from the 
critical works mentioned in the previous chapters by being 
not general treatises but specific protests against prevail- 
ing conditions, or, as in the case of Gould’s poem, a direct 
and rather vicious satire upon them. I shall discuss 
briefly the four works mentioned above. 

Of Robert Gould the satirist very little is known and two 
of his works, afterwards acknowledged, are attributed in 


96 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


the British Museum catalog to Tom Brown. “ The Play 
House ” appeared in a volume of 1689, and was afterwards 
printed, much enlarged, in a volume of 1709, shortly after 
his death.1 Gould published two plays and miscellaneous 
poems, but his best work is Juvenalian satire —as violent 
as Oldham, but better rhymed. In the preface to the 
later edition of ‘The Play House” he confesses that this 
poem brought great odium upon him, and that no apolo- 
gies availed to make the actors forgive him or to accept 
one of his plays—the latter statement arousing some sus- 
picion. The opening lines of his poem are not without 
truth: 


“Of all the things which at this guilty time 
Have felt the honest satyr’s wholesome rhyme 
The play house has scap’t best, been most foreborne, 
Though it, of all things, most deserves our scorn.” 


Jonson, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Wycherley, and Southern 


are praised, but many are damned: 


“In short, our plays are now so loosely writ, 
They’ve neither manners, modesty, or wit. 
How can these things to our instruction lead 
Which are unchaste to see, a crime to read?” 


Some lines from his lurid picture of conditions in the play 
houses have already been given. 

‘““A Reflection on our Modern Poesie” (Anon., 1695) is 
less Juvenalian than Gould’s satire, and more in the style 
of. the usual Restoration verse essay. It has never, I be- 
lieve, been referred to in this connection before, but it 
anticipates most of Collier’s points and shows again how 


little was original with him, so far as the main heads of | 


his discourse were. “congamed’ As with Collier, this. “essay 
starts with the assumption that the stage was invented for 


1 My quotations are from the poem in its ‘earlier £ orm. 


eh 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 97 


a moral purpose, and laments the degradation of the 
modern drama as compared with that of ancient times, 
which he represents as existing solely for its philosophy. 
He speaks of Sophocles: 


“Who ere he did pretend to poetry 
Search’d the grave precepts of philosophy; ” 


whereas, he says, modern dramatists forget the end for 
which they write and are negligent of precept if only they 
can delight. What especially suggests Collier.is the part 
objecting to the ridicule of the clergy and the protest.that 
the heathens never committed that impiety. 


“See, now the poet’s bold in mischief grown, 
And turns to ridicule the sacred gown! 
The grace Divine a laughing stock he makes 
And the firm basis of religion shakes: 


* x * * * * * * 


Happy the heathen! Whose impiety 
Ne’er mounted yet to such a high degree.” 


_ Juvenalian satire is of doubtful value, either for the 
correction of contemporaries or for the enlightenment of 
the historian seeking information concerning the actual 
conditions of the satirist’s time. The lurid tone which 
characterizes it gives rise to the suspicion that the satirist 
realized too well the literary effectiveness of total de- 
pravity to fail to see it everywhere. Hence neither the 
doubtful testimony of such satire nor the denunciation of 
preachers to be expected more or less at any time, indicates 
so well the existence of some dissatisfaction with the 
theater and contemporary drama in the minds of the 
moderate class as does the little essay “Of Modern 
Comedies” in the “Country Conversations ” published 
anonymously in 1694 by James Wright.t. Wright was a 
1 Attribution by Halkett and Lang. 


98 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


pleasant and unpedantic writer, and, moreover, a lover 
of old plays, of which he had an extensive collection; so 
his criticisms are significant as showing that within the 
body of play-goers itself was to be found a spirit of pro- 
test such as was much more likely to produce a change in 
the drama than any. denunciation from the satirists or 
the pulpiteers. The ‘ Country Conversations” are in the 
form of dialogues between groups of gentlemen who visit 
a friend in the country. 

“The Plain Dealer” and “Sir Fopling Flutter” are 
commended, but many of the new comedies are denounced 
as immoral. It is admitted that. by satire comedy.may 
achieve its true end of instruction, but. objected..that. in 
many comedies vice is. protected. rather. than~satirized, 
and the rakish heroes held up not to scorn .but.to-admira- 
tion. ‘I must observe,” says one of the speakers, “ that 
the common parts and characters of our modern comedy 
are two young debauchés whom the author calls men of — 
wit and pleasure, and sometimes men of wit and sense — 
The bottle and the Miss (as they phrase it) twisted to- 
gether make their Summum Bonum; all their songs and 
discourse is on that subject. But at last, partly for 
variety of faces, and partly in consideration of improving 
their estate (shatter’d with keeping) they marry two 
young ladies, one of which is as wild as possibly can be, — 
so as to ’scape the main chance, the other, more reserved, 
but really as forward to be marry’d as her sister.” 

Wright’s well-bred protest, and the more or less literary 
indignation of the satirist, indicate that even in the lay 
mind the freedom of the theater was not always com- 
placently regarded. But none of these protests was likely 
to arouse a controversy. All were obviously of minor 
importance, and the author of no one of them seemed 
animated by any great determination to force a reform. 


amg ee” 
oe 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 99 


The preface to “ Prince Arthur” (1695) was written by 
a somewhat more determined reformer. Sir Richard 
Blackmore, its author, was an indefatigable writer on 
ethics and was the scorn of the wits who, according to Dr. 
Johnson, hated him more for his virtue Gian for his dull- 
ness. Posterity, however, has been inclined to agree with 
the judgment of the wits, and perhaps it would not be un- 
fair to say that Dr. Johnson loved him more for his piety 
than his poetry. 

Blackmore held firmly that the poet should, first of all, 
instruct, and hence, perhaps, he should not feel too much 
disappointed that his epics do not seem to delight moderns. 
At any rate, the preface referred to contained a more or 
less impassioned protest against the stage. Like Collier, 
he begins his attack under the support of critical principles. 
From universal Sah: See he says, the purpose of poetry 
is recognized to be “ JnsiTUctON of our minds, and regula- 
tion of our manners ”’ ; and, as to dramatic poetry, tragedy 
is designed to rane or comedy to laugh men out of 
their vices. He grants that drama should also delight, but 
insists “that this is only a subordinate end, and really only 
a means, and that only men of little genius will employ their 


wit for no purpose higher than that of merely pleasing the 


imagination. In all ages, he says, there have been men who 


have perverted the end of poetry, but never so many as in 


his own day. As to Collier, so to him, it seems that the 
poets are engaged in a general confederacy to ruin virtue 
and religion, and, along with them,.their..own..art.... The 
stage, which was first, he says, raised for the protection 
of religion, has been betrayed and given over to enemies 
who have turned its artillery against the place they should 
defend. If anyone doubts this, let him read the plays. 
“A man of sense, and the fine gentleman in comedy, 
who as the chief person propos’d to the esteem and imita- 


400 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


tion of the audience is enrich’d with all the sense and wit 
the poet can bestow; this extraordinary person you will 
find to be a derider of religion, a great admirer of Lucre- — 
tius, not so much for his learning as for his irreligion, a 
person wholly idle, dissolv’d in luxury, abandon’d to his 
pleasures, a great debaucher of women, profuse and ex- — 
travagant in his expenses; and in short, this finished 
gentleman will appear a finished libertine.” He wishes that 
the poets were completely in the pay and under the con- 
trol of the State and might be suffered to write nothing 
prejudicial to religion or government. 

“ Prince Arthur ”’ was reprinted twice (1695 and 1696) 
before 1698, and Blackmore, in his earnestness, is Collier’s 
most significant predecessor in the attack on the stage. As 
Dr. Johnson? remarks, Blackmore anticipated all that 
was afterwards said by Collier. There is, however, one 
thing to be noted. As we shall see, Collier’s affected 
modesty did not set well upon him, and was indeed cast 
off; whereas there is in Blackmore’s preface no indication 
that he would have gone to the same lengths of fanaticism 
as his better known successor. 

“It is certainly not true then that in 1698 there was 
anything novel in the idea of attacking the theater, that- 
Collier’s general principles were in any way unfamiliar 
to the public, or that no one had ever pointed out the dis- 
crepancy which existed between orthodox critical theory 
and contemporary dramatic. practice. On the contrary, 
Puritanism had made the attacks on the side of religious 
authority familiar, and several minor writers had called 
attention to the discrepancy between dramatic theory and 
practice. It is true, however, and it is this which gives to 
Collier his importance, that no one had.made much of all 
this. The dramatic tradition was long established, and 
though many moderate people might be shocked, especially 
1 Javes of the Poets. 


7 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 101 


if their attention was directed to the fact that they ought 
to be shocked, they were familiar with the tradition 
which had been firmly established at a time when most 
men then living were at least only youths and they did not 
tend of their own accord to question it. None of the men 
whose works have just been discussed had shown much 
determination, and not since the civil war had anyone 
flung himself against the stage with the fanatical enthusi- 
asm which makes for change. But a general movement for 
reform was beginning to spread, the debauchery at court 
which generated the comic tradition was reformed, and 
people were more or less familiar with the arguments which 
could be used against the stage. 

_ By 1696 affairs were approaching a climax. The au- 
dience was obviously dissatisfied with the old tradition. 
Cibber’s obtrusively moral play, ‘“ Love’s Last Shift,” was 
a tremendous success, and three plays of that season? refer 
1m their prefaces to the fact that they were objected to on 

‘moral grounds. Moreover, a controversy concerning the 
stage was already raging in France, and the English public 
knew of it, for we read in the ‘ Gentleman’s Journal ”: ? 
“The controversy is now as hot for and against the lawful- 
ness of the French stage, as it was of late about the 
ancients and moderns,” and several French books for and 
against the theater are mentioned. Both the prologue and 
text of “ The Provok’d Wife” (1697) show that an uneasy 
feeling of imminent disturbance was in the air, and the 
line in the prologue 


“Kind heav’n! Inspire some venom’d priest to write,” 


was positively prophetic. 
The “ venom’d priest” received his inspiration, and ap- 
peared in the form of Jeremy Collier, non-juring divine 


1 The Country-Wake, The Cornish Comedy, and The She Gal- 
lants. 2 November, 1694. 


102 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


and born controversialist; master of all weapons fair and 
unfair, sure of himself as only a hopeless fanatic can be 
sure of himself, and possessing an unholy joy in combat, 
where he lays about him with all the exultation of Samson 
slaying Philistines with (to make the.metaphor complete) 
a jawbone. There is no doubt as to Collier’s ultimate pur- 
pose. The end of his discourse, as the seventeenth-century 
rhetoricians would have said, was action. He was not 
writing literary satire or aesthetic criticism. His enemies 
succeeded in alleging a variety of indirect motives. Some 
said that he was merely striking at the government, which 
had always supported the theaters; others that he sought 
fame and money, and still others that he had an extra- 
ordinary nose for bad odors, and that his corrupt nature 
took pleasure in providing innocent passages with an ob- 
scene gloss, or, as a satirist put it, in making a “ chymical — 
extraction ” from the poets and then “subliming ’em after 
to blasphemy.” * But these charges are unfair. His was 
the genuine and irritating zeal of the reformer. From this © 
fact arose his greatest merit and greatest defects. Noth- 
ing is so likely as this same zeal to inspire confidence and 
enthusiasm, and on the other hand, nothing is so sure to | 
spoil the temper and banish urbanity. | 
Collier had already achieved a certain amount of prom- — 
inence. He was known as a man of learning, but also as — 
a fanatic. The blessings of the revolution were too obvious — 
not to make the sensible part of mankind regard with aver- — 
sion those stiff-necked clergymen who refused to take the | 
oath to William and maintained an ineffectual but trouble- 
breeding loyalty to that James who had done all in his’ 
power to ruin them and their church. The doctrine that — 
complete submission to any ruler, even a Nero, was a 
religious duty did not appeal to English common sense. — 
1 Visits from the Shades. 1704. | 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 103 


Moreover, Collier had just drawn attention to himself 
by giving absolution on the scaffold to two traitors ex- 
ecuted for complicity in the Jacobite plot in 1698, and was 
even then living under censure by the government. Yet 
in spite of this initial unpopularity, his personal triumph 
was complete. Even his opponents testify to the éclat 
which attended his performance. “ The tide of prejudice 
runs high for my adversary,” says one,t and another com- 
plains that “ The Short View ” “has been receiv’d by the 
world with a generous applause, and stood the shock of 
some of the greatest wits of the age.” ” 

Prynne, for his book against the stage, was sentenced 
_to be deprived of his university degrees, to be expelled from 
Lincoln’s Inn, to pay a five-thousand-pound fine, to_have 
his ears cut off, and to be imprisoned for life. Collier 
won an everlasting fame and was granted by William an 
order of “ Nolle prosequi,”’ which released him from all 
further fear of prosecution as a political offender in the 
case of the Jacobite plot.® 

More than two score separate books, pamphlets, prefaces, 
etc., may be counted as part of the storm which he raised. 
To discuss each of them separately would be obviously 
impossible and undesirable. Many may be grouped and 
treated only as they represent general tendencies which 
arose during the controversy. But the importance of the 
“Short View” is so much greater than that of any other 
book in the literature of the controversy, that it must be 

1 Drake. 

2 Filmer. 

8 It is true that the severity of Prynne’s sentence was due to the 
fact that his attack upon the theater was regarded as an attack 
upon royalty. The fine was never collected but his ears were cut 


off and, for a subsequent offense, the remaining stumps were also 
amputated. He was released from prison after the opening of the 


_ ‘Long Parliament. 


‘104 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


discussed at some length. ‘Mr. Collier has said” is a 
phrase that meets one everywhere. No one, either friend or 
enemy of the stage, ever doubted that he was the head of the 
affair. 


Since Collier’s purpose was primarily a practical one— 


to get something done — he wisely assumed.at.the begin- : 


ning an apparently moderate position. He realized that to 
make his appeal wholly on the grounds of ascetic Christian 


piety, while it might appeal to his brother divines and the - 


at ain religious class, would not appeal to the worldly, 
and consequently he determined to meet the wits on their 
own ground—namely, the commonly accepted critical 
dicta. Accordingly he begins with a well-known formula. 

A brief summary of his argument will be given before 
any attempt is made to censure or praise him. Poetry, 
he says, is a noble institution. Its purpose is to recommend 
virtue. The poets have in their hands a powerful | weapon 
for the battle against vice. But in his’ age it has fallen 
into bad hands, and been turned against thosé whom. it 
should serve, so that nothing has gone so far to -debauch 
the age as the playwrights. These wicked men are not 
even indifferent to virtue. They are its declared enemies, 
and in order to advocate vice most effectually, they have 
craftily attacked religion and priests, which they know to 
be virtue’s chief supports. 

His first charge—and one that certainly had some 
foundation —is immodesty. He finds that the lewdness 
of the playwrights’ language not only raises evil passions, 
but is unworthy of a gentleman, is a fault of behavior, 
and degrades men to the level of beasts. ‘Goats and 
monkeys, if they could speak, would express their brutal- 
ity in such language as this.” Especially reprehensible 
is the habit of putting obscenity in the mouths of-ladies 
of quality. In the ‘ Double Dealer” there are but four 


ev 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 105 


ladies, and three of them are debauched. There can be 
no plea of satire. Even if such things do exist they had 
best be concealed, and moreover the language of the pro- 
logue, where the author himself speaks in person, is just as 
bad. Plautus and Terence are much less open to objection. 
Their language is comparatively pure and they never make 
ladies of quality or married women strumpets. Jonson, 
too, is comparatively refined, and ‘The Faithful Shep- 
herdess ”’ is a sort of exaltation of chastity. But Shake- 
speare is “ too guilty to make evidence.” 

Here Collier reveals one of his characteristic weaknesses. 
There was enough undeniably objectionable in Restoration 
drama to make it unnecessary to allege any doubtful cases. 
The case of Shakespeare is sufficiently doubtful to cause 
many people to question his judgment. So, too, there were 
enough cases where the intent of the author was definitely 
to satirize religion and the commonly accepted standards 
of morality, and it was unwise to cite such a case as he 
does from the “ Relapse,” where Lord Fopington makes 
the following remark: “ Why faith madam,— Sunday. is 
a vile day, I must confess. A man must have very little 
to do at church that can give an account of the sermon.” 
This, in the mouth of a ridiculous fop, is evidently not 
meant to be approved. In citing it, Collier gave color to 
the defence of his opponents who maintained that all such. 
speeches could be justified on the ground of satire. i 

Collier’s next chapter deals with the profaneness of the 
stage, including the use of oaths which are plainly. for- 
bidden by the statute Third Jac. I cap. 21. But the blas- 
phemy, he says, is still worse. Wildblood in the “ Mock 
Astrologer ” expresses a preference for the Turkish idea of 
Paradise, and (horribile dictu) in another of Dryden’s 
plays where a devil appears his sneezing is explained on 
the ground that he has been too long from the fire. Dry- 


106 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


den’s preface to Juvenal apologizes for some pious lines, 
and in his “Love Triumphant” occurs the following 
passage: 


“May heaven and your brave son, and above all, 
Your own prevailing Genius guard your age.” 


‘What, says Collier, “‘ is meant by his genius, in this place, 
is not easy to discover, only that ’tis something which is 
a better guard than heaven. But ’tis no matter for the 
sense, as long as the profaneness is clear.” 

Chapter III is devoted to a discussion of the abuse of 


\. the clergy, a point on which Collier was especially and 


vulnerably earnest. The cases of ‘The Spanish Friar,” 
“The Old Bachelor,” and “The. Relapse” are cited. 
“These poets I observe, when they grow lazy, and are in- 
clined to nonsense, they commonly get a clergyman to 
speak it. Thus they pass their own dullness for humor, 
and gratify their ease and their malice at once.” He will 
not allow that clergymen may be satirized under any 
conditions; and demands not. only that they be shown to 
be pious, but that they be given worldly respect and posi- 
tion. They have a right to such respect, he says, because 
of their close relation to God, so that “ To expose a priest, 
much more to burlesque his function, is an affront to the 
Deity ”; because of their importance to society; and be- 
cause of tradition, for they have always been honored 
among Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, Latins, and the English. 

How the wits made merry with Collier’s rather intem- 
perate zeal for the dignity of his own profession will appear — 
later. So great was his respect for the priesthood as such 
that he was quite as tender of the reputation of heathen 
members of the order as he was of Christian ones. Dry- 
den’s line in “ Absalom and Achitophel,” “ For priests of all 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 107 


religions are the same,” must have stuck in his mind. 
Moliére, Virgil, and Sophocles, he says, all treat priests 
better than do the English poets. Priests seldom appear 
in classical plays (never in Moliére or Corneille), and when 
they do “ ’tis business of credit that brings them there.” 

In Chapter LV_Collier is on safer ground in making the 
charge that the stage poets create their principal persons 
vicious and then reward them at the end of the play. 
Some few like Dryden might plead the facts of life in . 
excuse, or might maintain that delight and not instruction 
is the chief end of comedy, but the contrary was generally 
believed. The idea of poetic justice was becoming more | 
and more generally accepted. And the idea profoundly 
influenced comedy. That reward should be given to virtue 
and punishment to vice became almost axiomatic. Collier 
cites Horace, Aristotle, Jonson, and Rapin to prove this 
point. Moreover, all this he regards as an impropriety of 
manners as well as a violation of critical doctrine. 

So far, Collier had eschewed more or less strictly theo- 
logical arguments, and leaving the methods of Prynne 
alone had had almost always a background of critical 
support. In this first part of the book it is not so much 
the Bible or the Church Fathers or the theologians that 
he cites, as it is Aristotle, Rapin, Boileau, and Dryden, 
and, as Professor Spingarn points out, the very title 
“Short View” suggests Rymer’s ‘“ Short View of Tragedy,” 
as does the hectoring language and the main thought. We 
might add that there is nothing in the following sentence 
from Rymer’s translation of Rapin’s “ Reflections ” which 
might not have come from Collier. Possibly, indeed, it 
was the inspiration for his work. ‘‘Comedy has become, 
by the licentiousness of these late times, a school of de- 
bauchery; ’tis only to re-establish it in its natural estate, 


108 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


as it ought to be, according to Aristotle, that I pretend to 
speak. The rest I leave to the zeal of the preachers, who 
are a little slack on this subject.” 

Collier’s ultimate purpose is, of course, only moral, but 
in pursuit of that purpose he wishes to destroy contem- 
porary comedy, and to do so he attacks it wherever he 
considers it vulnerable, whether it be for the moment 
from the point of view of morality or of literature. Thus 
in his remarks on ‘“‘ The Relapse ” he devotes a considerable 
portion of his space to pointing out the improbability of 
the plot, not, of course, because he cares whether or not 
plays are improbable, but because he sees. here.an.oppor- 
tunity to weaken the position of the enemy by attacking 
a matter indifferent to himself yet important to the writer. 
Hence his connection with criticism. It was a tool or 
weapon. Since he hoped to persuade the literary world to 
; accept the validity of current literary dogmas, he expected 
_thus to win to his side many who cared more about art, 
_ formally considered, than about ethics. Among the plays 
which he picked out for detailed censure are Dryden’s 
“ Amphytrion,” D’Urfey’s ‘“ Don Quixote,” and “ The 
Relapse.” He censures the latter because while all good 
plays should have the action confined within twenty-four 
hours, the story of this must cover at least a week, and 
because, also, it has two plots and so violates the unity 
of action. Of course Collier cared nothing about the unity 
of action, and the English dramatists had no notion of 
submitting themselves to it; Congreve protested that all 
this was mere pedantry. But Collier answered stoutly: 
“Mr. Congreve is so kind as to inform me that I talk 
pedantical cant of Fable, Intrigue, Discovery, of Unity of 
Time etc. He means the pedantical cant of Aristotle and 
Horace, and Bossu and Corneille, Rapin, and Mr. Dryden.” 
As long as the formal critics opposed the methods of con- 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 109 


temporary comedy, Collier was willing to swear by them 
for the sake of damning the drama. 

That his main contention —7.e., the end of art is moral- 
ity — was in accord with contemporary theory has already © 
been made evident. Dryden questioned _“ whether instruc- 
tion. has anything to do with comedy,” but Collier falls 
upon him with Horace’s praise of poets for reforming 
manners, with Aristotle, with Jonson’ id _it being the mL: 
with a quotation from Rapin, and ani the following Rot 
Boileau, adapted to English conditions: 


“T like an author that reforms the age; 
And keeps the right decorum of the stage: 
That always pleases by just reason’s rule: 
But for a tedious droll, a quibbling fool, 
Who with low nauseous baudry fills his plays; 
Let him be gone and on two trestles raise, 
Some Smithfield stage, where he may act his pranks, 
And make Jack-puddings speak to mountebanks.” 


He sums the matter up thus in his own vigorous style: 
“Indeed to make delight the main business of comedy is 
an unreasonable and dangerous principle: It opens the 
way to all licentiousness, and confounds the distinction 
between mirth and madness.” As to the method which the 
dramatists should employ, he falls in with the recently 
emphasized principle of poetic justice, for which he had 
critical authority, and in accordance with which he attacks 
the dramatists for allowing their debauched persons not 
only to go unpunished but actually to be rewarded. Thus 
because the rake of “ The Relapse ” gets the bride, he says 
of the moral: “It points the wrong way, and puts the 
prize into the wrong hand. It seems to make lewdness the 
reason of desert, and gives Young Fashion a second fortune, 
only for debauching away his first.” 


110 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


How Collier followed the critics in pointing out that 
obscenity is a fault of taste has already been mentioned, 
and some of his less obvious absurdities can be explained 
on the same ground. He blames the playwrights with great 
severity for representing a lord as a fool, and praises 
Moliére because he makes no one higher than a Marquis 
ridiculous. It was vain to answer that a lord might as 
well as anyone else be a fool, for Rymer had taught that 
one must represent character by types, and the type of 
a lord was not a fool, but a truly noble man. So with the 
women. Speaking of “ The Relapse” he says that “ The 
fine Berinthia, one of the top characters,” is impudent and 
profane, whereas the “ character ” of a woman is modesty, 
and she must.be so-represented, just. as a soldier must be 
represented as harsh and tumultuous. In attacking the 
theatrically effective but hardly proper scene in which the 
relapsing husband bears Berinthia, resisting but feebly, 
from the darkened stage to. an adjoining closet, Collier 
bases his censure not primarily on the moral tendency of 
the characters and scenes, but on the fact that it is not in 
accordince with the rules!; He quotes not the Scriptures 
but Rapin and Rymer.'~ The former, he says, blames 
Ariosto and Tasso for representing two of their women as 
“too free and airy,” and Rymer in the “ Tragedies of the 
Last Age” says that Nature (of course the general nature 
of the critics, not actuality) knows nothing in manners 
which so properly distinguishes a woman as modesty, and 
that an impudent woman is fit only to be exposed and 
kicked in comedy. So, too, in his plea for immunity for 
the priesthood, Collier points out that Homer and Virgil 
treated it with respect, for ‘‘ They were govern’d by the 
reason of things, and the common usage of the world. 
They knew the priesthood a very reputable employment, 
and always esteem’d as such. To have used the priest ill, 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 111 


they must have call’d their own discretion in question: 
They must have run into impropriety, and fallen foul upon 
custom, manners and religion.” Be it said again that 
Collier chose this method not because he esteemed the 
authority of Horace above that of St. Paul or Tertullian, 
but because he knew that he was addressing not the 
theologians but the wits. 

In choosing his method Collier was extremely alilieul 
. but in choosing plays for elaborate analysis and condemna- © 
tion he showed a certain lack of discretion which is notable 
throughout his work. He selected Dryden’s ‘“ King 
Arthur” and “ Amphytrion,” D’Urfey’s ‘Don Quixote ” 
and Vanbrugh’s “ The Relapse,” and was led to do so, no 
doubt, by the fact that they were all comparatively recent. 
But, although not one was absolutely unimpeachable, still 
none was by any means the worst of its class. A good 
deal could be said in extenuation of the morals of each of 
them. “Don Quixote,” especially, though occasionally 
coarse, would pass as a very innocent play in comparison 
with almost any one of Mrs. Behn’s; and although not 
particularly delicate, it is certainly not vicious. It lacks 
the literary art of Congreve, and also lacks his cynical 
perversity. By wasting his eloquence on the peccadillos 
of this play, Collier has nothing left which is really effec- 
tive when excitement might be less uncalled for. ‘‘ Amphy- 
trion” is probably the happiest choice which he made, 
and the least defensible of the plays, so that it justifies 
pretty well all that Collier said about its lusciousness. 
But as always he over-steps bounds. Instead of criticis- 
ing it merely as an extremely loose tale, he alleges roundly 
that Dryden, by making Jupiter a somewhat unexalted 
character, secretly intends to satirize Jehovah. And who 
but Collier, seeking for a typical example of Restoration 
depravity, would have lit upon the same poet’s “ King 


112 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Arthur ” to present in extenso as a horrible example? It 
is a feeble and silly performance, but because it intro- 
duces the devil and magic, Collier exclaims: ‘‘ Those that 
bring devils upon the stage, can hardly believe them any- 
where else. To mix Christian and heathen story, is to 
imply that one is no more worthy of belief than the other.” 
Collier was constitutionally incapable of distinguishing a 
mote from a beam. 

Students of Restoration Comedy have long been engaged 
with the question as to how far Vanbrugh represents a 
turn toward a more healthy tone in drama. Though more 
or less engaged with this question himself, the present 
writer believes firmly in the impossibility of success in 
any attempt to determine the exact amount of instruction 
to be derived from a play. Still he is inclined to believe 
that Vanbrugh does indeed move with the reform stream, 
and that here again Collier made a mistake in choosing 
“The Relapse,” rather than some less equivocal comedy, 
as the object of a special attack. In it Vanbrugh himself 
alludes to the need of a reform, represents some virtuous 
characters in an extremely favorable light, does not dis- 
tribute epigrams of perverse morality to all his witty char- 
acters, and actually has one man pay a tribute of respect 
to chastity. Yet Collier attacks the play so violently that 


ANA 


one cannot refrain from quotation and comment. His 
summary of the plot is reasonably fair. ‘‘ Fashion, a lewd, 
prodigal, younger brother, is reduced to extremity: upon 
his arrival from his travels, he meets with Coupler, an 
old sharping match-maker; this man puts him upon a 
project of cheating his elder brother, Lord Foppington, of 
a rich fortune. Young Fashion being refused a sum of 
money by his brother, goes into Coupler’s plot, bubbles Sir 
Tunbelly of his daughter, and makes himself master of a 
fair estate.” The play, he says, had more properly been 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE S1aGE 113 


called ‘‘The Younger Brother, or the Fortunate Cheat.” 
The moral, he says, “ puts the prize in the wrong hand,” 
and he sums it up as follows: “ First, that all younger 
brothers should be careful to run out their fortunes as 
fast and as ill as they can—Secondly, that when a man 
is press’d, his business is not to be governed by scruples, 
or formalize upon conscience and honesty.” 

Now, as has already been confessed, the general charge 
that Restoration plays represent heroes as debauched and 
also represent them as attractive is true; but one cannot 
deduce neatly formulated morals from them without being 


ridiculous. ‘‘ The Relapse ” is a comparatively moral play, . 


and Collier’s method could deduce as bad a moral from 
an even more innocent performance. The fact. that Van- 
brugh wrote a play in which a younger brother loses his 
money and afterwards marries a rich girl does not nec- 
essarily prove that he meant to teach that ‘‘ All younger 
brothers should be careful to run out their fortunes as 
fast and as ill as they can.” And as for putting the prize 
in the wrong hand, Sir Foppington is a heartless and brain- 
less ass, and.certainly. deserves.a.prize as little as does his 
brother. Besides, it is doubtful if the girl_is much of a 
prize afterall. Her speech imdicates that the behavior 
which she plans for life in town with her husband is such 
that his fortune will not be easily earned. Might one not 
with as much. show of truth as Collier can boast, formulate 
the moral thus: ‘“‘ He who seeks a wife for her fortune will 


get a bad bargain”? What I mean is, that from a play no 


more than from life can one deduce hard and _ fast 


“Morals,” and_that Collier made a mistake in choosing § 


“The Relapse,” since its general tone is more healthy than 
that of dozens of other Restoration plays. Whoever reads 
the “Short View” must see that while Collier had much 
evil to attack, and knew how to express himself forcibly, 


megs 


114 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


he was too easily shocked, and weakened his case by being 
unable to differentiate between what was of doubtful 
propriety and what was undoubtedly abominable. 

After finishing his detailed examination of a few con- 
temporary plays, Collier turns aside from criticism and 
bases his attack on what must have been more congenial 
to his temperament — namely, authority. He summons 
the testimony of the ancients and that of the church, 
and it soon becomes evident that he shares to the fullest 
extent the ascetic Christian hatred of all art, and that the 


authority of Ben Jonson, or Dryden, was appealed to only — 


because it happened to suit his purpose, and not because 
he could possibly have had any sympathy with either of 
them. It has been said in criticism of Collier that 
the argument from the ancients was irrelevant. Actually 
it was, but it could not seem so to his contemporaries. 
It must be remembered that the Renaissance worship of 
antiquity still lingered very markedly, that education was 


based upon the study of Latin and Greek, and that there 
was still a strong tendency to regard the sterner side 6f — 


the ancient character as a.model of excellence, and. to 
speak of “ Roman virtue” as something that even a mil- 


lennium and a half of Christian civilization had “hardly— 
been able to equal. Just as Horace was the model of taste, 


so Cato the Censor was a model of virtue. 

Collier begins the new phase of his subject thus: “ Hav- 
ing in the foregoing chapters discover’d some part of the 
“disorders of the English stage: I shall, in this last, present 
the reader with a short view of the sense of antiquity. To 
which I shall add some modern authorities; from all which 
it will appear that plays have generally been look’d on as 
the nurseries of vice, the corrupters of youth, and the 


grievance of the country where they are suffer’d.” Here is — 


a notable transition from what he had previously said. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 115 


From the first portion of his book one would get the im- 
pression that plays had been invented to recommend virtue, 
that such was their normal function, and that the English 
dramas, particularly those of his own time, had formed an 
exception and had been unaccountably perverted. But 
here, be it noted, he says that plays have usually been 
looked upon as “nurseries of vice.” From now on he 
throws aside the disguise and appears frankly as an enemy 
of the stage as such. 

Plato, he says, “tells us that plays raise the passions, 
and pervert the use of them, and by consequence are 
dangerous to morality. For this reason he banishes these 
diversions from his commonwealth.” Here we get at the 
root of the matter discussed at the beginning of the present 
chapter. Plays, like other forms of literature, raise the . 
passions of Jove, ambition, and honor. These are the things 
‘that to the worldly mind” make the world worth while. — 
But they are fundamentally opposed to asceticism, which 
does not want to make the world worth while and looks 
upon all the passions which attach one to it as nec- 
essarily evil. Hence, though Collier believed the contem- 
porary stage worse than most stages, he believed that 
all were evil. “His opponents accused him of posing as a 
reformer of the stage, whereas he really’ wished to destroy 
it, and in his defenses he never denied’ this allegation. He 
‘praises Terence only comparatively, he says, and means 
only that he was not'so bad as the English authors. Fol- 
lowing the line of argument taken up, he shows that 
Aristotle had objected that the young should not see plays, 
that Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, and Valerius Maximus had pro- 
tested against immoral plays; and then, passing to the legal 
aspect, shows that the Spartans banished the theater com- 
pletely, that the Athenians, the Romans, the Elizabethan 
English, the French, and the Flemish had all at one time 


116 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


or another put some stigma or restriction upon the theater, 
and that the early church had excommunicated players. 
Lactantius, Augustine, and Ambrose are ransacked for all 
references weighty or trivial against the stage or shows. 
Authorities are piled one upon another in an effort to damn 
the. whole institution on the strength of traditional oppo- 
sition. 

After all deductions are made for the facts that Collier 
wrote at an extremely opportune moment, that the Eng- 
lish stage was in many ways so objectionable that almost 
any attack, however violent, must seem more or less 
justified, and that a very definite reform movement both 
in regard to the theater and to society in general was in 
progress, it still is impossible to deny to Collier’s own 
ability a considerable part of the credit for the enormous 
stir which his book made. That he was essentially narrow- 
minded, and that he was in no sense merely a stern, frank 
friend of the stage, I think is already evident; yet he 
presented his case with such force that people very different 
from himself expressed approval of his work, and men like 
Cibber and Steele, who fundamentally were on the other 
side, were driven partly by the depraved condition of 
contemporary drama on the strictly moral side, and partly 
by the effectiveness of his book, to profess themselves in 
agreement with him. 

His earnestness was one great asset, his style another. 


To the modern ear the latter is sometimes offensive, but 


it was admirably in the tradition of seventeenth-century 
controversy. His contemporaries liked learning and liked 
raillery. Collier appealed to both of these traits by mixing 
a bewildering number of citations, pertinent and imperti- 
nent, with sneers, taunts and irony, together with exuber- 
ant raillery and abuse. He is constantly hovering some- 
where between eloquence and bombast, and his genuine 


i nee | 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 117 


earnestness often goes a long way toward convincing the 
reader that the latter is the former. | 

Dryden’s line suggesting an explanation of the superior 
endowments of Absalom, 


“Whether inspired with a diviner lust, 
His father got him... ” 


though expressing only an idea familiar in popular litera- 
ture, lashed Collier to a fury. ‘“ This is downright de- 
fiance of the living God! Have you the very essence and 
spirit of blasphemy, and the Holy Ghost brought in upon 
the most hideous occasion. I question whether the tor- 
ments and despair of the damn’d, dare venture at such 
flights as these. They are beyond description, I pray God 
they may not be beyond pardon too.” The light use of 
a Scriptural phrase brings this comment: ‘ This is an 
eruption of hell with a witness. I almost wonder the 
smoke of it has not darken’d the sun, and turn’d the air 
to plague and poison!” And “ They conclude he [God] 
wants power to punish, because he has patience to forbear. 
Because there is a space between blasphemy and venge- 
ance; and they don’t perish in the act of defiance; because 
they are not blasted with lightning, transfixt with thunder, 
and guarded off with devils, they think there’s no such 
matter as a day of reckoning. But let no man, be de- 
ceiv’d, God is not mock’d; not without danger they may 
be assured. Let them retreat in time, before the floods 
run over them.” Speaking in general, he says: ‘On what 
unhappy times are we fallen! The oracles of truth, the 
laws of omnipotence, and the fate of eternity are laughed 
at and despis’d! That the poets should be suffer’d to 
play upon the Bible, and Christianity be hooted off the 
stage! Christianity that from such feeble beginnings made 
so stupendous a progress! That over-bore all the opposi- 


118 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


tions of power and learning; and with twelve poor men, 
outstretch’d the Roman Empire. But that this glorious 
religion so reasonable in its doctrine, so well attested by 
miracles, by martyrs, by all the evidence that fact is 
capable of, should become the diversion of the town, and 
the scorn of buffoons: And where, and by whom is all 
this out-rage committed? Why not by Julian, or Porphyry, 
not among Turks or heathens, but in a Christian country, 
in a reform’d church, and in the face of authority.” No 
wonder that Collier was read. Whether such writing be 
justified by the facts or not, and whether it be eloquence 
or bombast, it is certainly not dull. 

One gets, perhaps, the highest idea of Collier’s ability by 
regarding such passages apart from the things which call 
them forth. He has a very keen eye for blasphemy, and 
often an innocent or trivial thing brings down a ludicrously 
disproportionate tirade. How he saw blasphemy in the 
fact that one of Dryden’s imps sneezed from having been 
too long away from the fire has already been referred to. 
Many other examples of an exaggerated sensibility might 


be mentioned, but one will suffice. He quotes the follow- — 


ing song from D’Urfey’s “ Don Quixote ”: 


“ Providence that formed the Fair 
In such a charming skin 
Their outside made his only care, 
And never look’d within.” 


This seems a harmless bit of wit, yet Collier calls it “a 
bold song against Providence ” and says it is a “‘ direct blas- 
pheming the creation, and a satire upon God Almighty.” 
D’Urfey * spoke not untruly of Collier as “ foaming at the 
mouth.” One would like to ask with Prior, “ Odds life! 
must one swear to the truth of a song?” 

1 Preface to The Campaigners. 1698. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 119 


The choice of such feeble examples when many better 
offered themselves cast doubt on his power of discernment, 
and offered weak points for the attacks of his enemies. 
Moreover, these examples show that no possible stage could 
really have pleased him, for he was able to find blasphemy 
and obscenity in the most innocent phrases. His own 
language was sometimes coarse. Criticising a passage in 
Congreve’s “ The Mourning Bride,” he says: “ This litter 
of epithets makes the poem look like a bitch overstock’d 
with puppies, and sucks the sense almost to skin and 
bone”; and when he says of Shakespeare and Ophelia, 
“Since he was resolv’d to drown the lady like a kitten, he 
should have set her a swimming a little sooner,” he proved 
nothing but his own insensibility. 

The things that he praises are often as unaccountable 
as those that he abuses. Euripides is praised because, 
when Orestes is about to kill his mother, he mentions the 
murder of her husband but not her adultery — surely, no 
very material point in comparison with matricide. Only a 
lack of humor can account for Collier’s tactical error in 
making so important an issue out of the necessity of giving 
a priest of any sort, Pagan or Christian, not only almost 
divine reverence, but also great worldly station. This 
position only gave point to remarks like the following by 
Vanbrugh, who maintained that “ ’twas the quarrel of his 
gown and not of his God, that made him take arms against 
me—in all probability, had the poets never discover’d a 
rent in the gown, he had done by religion, as I do by my 
brethren, left it to shift for itself.” The fact of the matter 
is that Collier was not really quite enough a man of the 
world for his task. The fairness and moderation which 
he tried to assume did not fit his character, and it took 
such_a man as Steele, who could congenially put himself / 
on the side of poetry, to effect the reform of English 


120 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


comedy. That Steele did more harm than good I shall 
maintain later on, but he brought to his task a power of 
persuasion that Collier lacked. 

The evils of the Restoration stage, and the fact that 
Collier called forcible attention to them, have blinded many 
later critics to the essential narrowness of his views. The 
‘Spectator ” confessed himself a great admirer of Collier, 
and public opinion has been, since that time, generally 
on his side. In the eighteenth century we find Davies in 
his “ Dramatic Miscellaney ” calling Collier ‘a severe, 
but just corrector of their [the dramatists] indecencies and 
blasphemy.” Macaulay? also at least implies as much, 
_and such is the prevailing estimate of Collier’s work. 

But attention must again be called to the fact that so 
_ to estimate him is to be over-impressed with the indecen- 
eles that actually existed, and to forget that while many 
of his charges were substantiated, there is abundant proof 
»in the book that he was a narrow-minded fanatic appar- 
_ently as much shocked by wit as he was by blasphemy, | 
and that no conceivable stage could have pleased him, since 
-he was fundamentally an enemy to imaginative literature 
-and belonged to that school of critics who, like Ascham, 
found the “ Morte D’Arthur ” only a story of wilful murder 
and bold adultery. 

1 History of England. Vol. III. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 
(Continued) 


Couuier’s book, being both powerful and opportune, 
brought forth a flood of confutation and support, so that 
between the publication of the “Short View” and 1725 
one may count more than forty separate books and pam- 
phlets which are definitely part of the controversy which 
he raised. Nor were they confined to London alone; 
they came from as far west as Bath and as far north 
as Edinburgh. 

To mention in chronological order all the contributions 
to the controversy or to balance reply and counter-reply 
would be tedious, and since there is endless repetition, 
uninstructive. I have attempted to make the bibliography 
as exhaustive as possible, and can say that it at least 
includes more items than will be found in any other list. 
I shall discuss in detail only some of the most important 
books. 

The dramatists who were attacked may fairly be allowed 
to speak first. Dryden’s few words are best known. He 
was probably too weary of controversy and of life to say 
much, and contented himself with a few remarks in the 
preface to the “Fables” and in the prologue to “ The 
Pilgrim.” In the former he pleads guilty in so far as any 


1 The single pamphlet which emanated from the latter city has 
never been noticed before, I think, and the copy in the Edinburgh 
library seems to be unique, but it is interesting only as showing 
how far the noise of the discussion had proceeded, since it con- 
tains nothing beyond the capacity of a provincial parson. 


121 


122 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


of his expressions or thoughts can be fairly accused of 
obscenity or profaneness. He says truly that Collier has 
often put a worse interpretation on some passages than 
they require, and that he has been hardly fair in calling 
his age worse than any which had gone before. But on 
the whole Dryden’s tone is one of submission. He kisses 
the rod, and in the prologue to “The Pilgrim” contents 
himself with protesting merely that the parson has 
stretched the point too far. 

Dryden has usually been praised for his moderation and 
for his candor, but one may wish that he had answered 
more at length. No one wag so fit as he to expose by 
moderate censure of his time the unfair ferocity of Collier. 
But perhaps he was too weary to enter into any new con- 
troversy. We can never know how sincere was his cry of 
mea culpa, for he died too soon to prove repentance by 
his works. The cleanness of the “ Fables” is a point in 
his favor, but one can never be sure. Some ten years 
before he had written in the magnificent fourth stanza of 
the ‘ Ode to Mistress Anne Killegrew ” a more moving la- 
ment for the faults of his age and for his own too active 
participation in them than any which appears in the 
preface to the ‘ Fables.” Yet he had not hesitated, a 
few years later, to lard ‘‘ Amphytrion ”’ plentifully. He was 
a master of the art of saying what he wanted to say with 
an air of conviction, whether he believed it or not; and had 
he lived he might not have demonstrated in his works 
the sincerity of the submission which he seemed so can- 
didly to proclaim. 

Congreve replied with “ Amendments to Mr. Collier’s 
false and imperfect citations, etc., from the Old Bachelor, 
Double Dealer, Love for Love, Mourning Bride,” and 
Vanbrugh with ‘ A Short Vindication of the Relapse and 
the Provok’d Wife.” Both disclaimed any intention of 


be i 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 123 


defending what was actually objectionable in the contem- 
porary comedy, but neither was wholly wise in his method. 
For while each could show that Collier was over-anxious 
to find offense where none could reasonably be found, and 
while some support could be given to Congreve’s state- 
ment that the reformer had “ blackened the thoughts with 
his own smut,” each made the mistake of himself stretching 


— 


the point too far and of pretending that Collier was only , 


reading into plays things which any candid reader must 
admit the authors had put there themselves. Thus Con- 
greve is quite right when he refuses to admit that a speech 
of Osmin in the “ Mourning Bride” is, as Collier called it, 
“a rant of smut and profaneness.” The speech is as 
follows: 

Osmin: Oh my Elmira 

What do the damn’d endure but to despair, 

But knowing heaven to know it lost forever. 


Osmin is referring to the loss of his mistress and is per- 
haps a bit extravagant, but certainly not profane. Con- 
greve is, however, not always so sincere. For instance, 
Collier had objected also to a scene in the ‘‘ Old Bachelor ” 
where one of the characters asks Bellmour if he would be 
content to go to heaven, and gets the response: “‘ Hum, not 
immediately, in my conscience, not heartily.” Now this is 


an innocent enough joke, and Congreve would have done 


well simply to say so, but instead he accuses Collier of 
distorting his meaning, for, he says, Bellmour continues: 
“T would do a little more good in my generation first, in 
order to deserve it.” Of course this is facetious, and does 
not change the meaning, but “ ’Tis one thing,” says Con- 
greve, “for a man to say positively, he will not go to 
heaven; and another to say, that he does not think himself 
worthy, till he is better prepared.’ Bellmour’s little speech 


124 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


is not, as Collier would have us believe, horribly profane, 
but neither is it, as Congreve tries to make it out, a pious 
reflection, and it does not have, as he says, ‘‘ a moral mean- 
ing contain’d in it.” Similarly, Congreve is right as long 
as he maintains that there is no reason why he should not 
ridicule a foolish clergyman, but he is insincere and un- 
wise when he-maintains. that he did not intend ridicule 
when he christened.one “ Mr. Prig.’ So, too, Vanbrugh 
gets some telling blows at Collier, but mraaiteas his own 
cause by obvious hypocrisy when, for instance, he refuses 
to see any double entendre in the remark of Rasor in “ The 
Provok’d Wife”; “And if my prayers were to be heard 
her punishment for so doing shou’d be like the serpent’s 
of old, she shou’d lye upon her face all the days of her 
life.” 

On the whole, Congreve’s reply is hastily written and 
not very successful. He showed that Collier sometimes 
exaggerated, but he made no very satisfactroy reply to 
the principal charge, i.e., that he represented vice in an 
attractive light and made vicious characters successful; 
for he hardly attempted to show either that this was per- 
missible or that it had not been done. Vanbrugh was more 
successful. He protested that if his plays did not expose 
vice and folly to ridicule, such had at least been his aim, 
and he did succeed in proving that while he might. be guilty 
occasionally of considerable freedom in speech and in the 
full length depiction of rather questionable scenes, he could 
not fairly be charged with teaching immorality. His illus- 
tration of--Gollier’s..inability to recognize.satire when he 
sees_it. and-of -his.unforunate habit of attributing to the 
dramatists themselves the opinions of»any character is 
particularly telling. Collier had objected to the following 
speech of Lord Foppington in “ The Relapse ”: “ Why faith 
madam, Sunday is a vile day, I must confess. A man 
must have very little to do there that can give an account 


~~ 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 125 


of the sermon.” Vanbrugh replies very tellingly to the . 
objection by remarking, quite truly, that in the play Lord 
Foppington does nothing that is not intended to be laughed 
at and despised, and that “though my Lord Foppington is 
not suppos’d to speak what he does to a religious end, yet 
‘tis so ordered, that his manner of speaking it, together 
with the character he represents, plainly and obviously 
instructs the audience (even to the meanest capacity) that 
what he says of his church-behaviour, is design’d for their 
contempt, and not. for their imitation.” There was in 
Restoration Comedy much perversity spoken for the ap- 
proval of the audience, but this was no example of it, an 
Collier was so intent on finding matter for objection haf 
he could not recognize satire when he saw it. 

The replies of Vanbrugh and Congreve were replied to 
by “A Letter to Mr. Congreve, etc.” (1698), by “ Ani- 
madversions upon Mr. Congreve’s late answer to Mr. 
Collier, etc.” (1698), and by Collier himself in “A De- 
fense of the Short View, etc.” (1699). Neither of the 
former two is very important. The first is merely raillery, 
but the second makes one or two points, including the 
suggestion that since Congreve is a dramatist it is not 
sufficient for him merely to disapprove of what is immoral 
on the stage; he has a duty to attempt to reform it. 
Collier’s reply exposes Congreve’s unsuccessful attempt to 
represent_his comedies as endowed with.a moral. purpose, 
and truly enough finds the real. moral of the “Old 
Bachelor” in Bellmour’s speech at the end of the fourth 
act: 


“No husband by his wife can be deceiv’d, 
She still is virtuous, if she’s so believ’d.” 


On the whole he does succeed in showing up the weakness 
of Congreve’s defense. Congreve had, indeed, shown that 
many of Collier’s attacks were on frivolous grounds; but 


126 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Collier succeeded very well in maintaining his principal 
contention that Congreve’s comedies were..such_as_ they 
were: that is, cynical pictures of contemporary...society, 


- not for the most part vicious in intent,.but-simply.-uncon- 


cerned with any moral consideration. 

Collier’s reply to Vanbrugh is less successful, for he re- 
turns to the attack and again shows his unreasonableness. 
Thus, the speech of Amanda (‘“ The Relapse”): ‘ What 
slippery stuff are men composed of? Sure, the account of 
their creation’s false, and ’twas the woman’s rib that they 
were form’d of,” Collier cites as proof that the play “ not 
only questions the truth of the Scriptures, but denies it.” 
As to Vanbrugh’s assertion that the various speeches to 
which Collier had objected were intended to be condemned 
by the audience and must not be taken as expressing the 
opinion of the dramatists, Collier falls back upon the as- 
sumption that evil is not to be spoken upon the stage 


‘under any circumstances, and argues: “ One man injures 


his neighbor, and another blames him for’t; does this 
cancel the guilt, and make the fact nothing? One man 
speaks blasphemy, and another reproves him; does this 
justify the boldness, or make the words unspoken?” 
Moreover, Collier says that whether what the characters 


say is intended to be reproved or ridiculed, yet the people 


who speak these blasphemies are fine gentlemen “ and 
- when vice has credit as well as pleasure annexed, the 
temptation is dangerously fortified.” In other words, 
_ Collier would have no drama, only sermons; for drama 
- may be misunderstood. | 


Neither side profited much from the anonymous “A 
Letter to A. H. Esq.” (1698) and “ A Letter to Mr. Con- 
greve on His Pretended Amendment, etc.” (1698), which 
were intended to support Collier (who was much better 
able to support himself), nor from “Some Remarks upon 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 127 


Mr. Collier’s Defense of his Short View” (1698), which, 
as became quite common, charged Collier with vanity, 
uncharitableness, and ill nature. 

There was, in the replies to Collier, little that was con- 
elusive. Whatever opinions the more worldly part of 
society might ultimately reach concerning the stage, he 
had scored a great triumph. Though his extreme view 
could not be accepted, it achieved its main purpose of 
arousing active interest in the condition of the English 
stage, and from his time on the question of how the stage 
might be held within the bounds of morality was in every 
one’s mouth and on the tip of everyone’s pen. Books on 
the stage became almost a recognized department of litera- 
ture, and varied all the way from ponderous and unread- 
able volumes like that by Arthur Bedford, who boasts that 
he gives reference to almost two thousand instances of 
corruption in the plays of the two preceding years, to 
modest pamphlets for distribution among the masses by 
the religious. — 

Interest in the subject became so widespread as to be 
shared “by every class of society. Steele could discourse 
in a spirit of sweet reasonableness for the benefit of the 
polished; men of a serious and ponderous nature like the 
lawyer Edward Filmer and the critic John Dennis could: 
seek a philosophical basis for defending the stage; and 
learned but naive clergymen could search the classics and 
the ponderous works of the fathers for light; while popular 
preachers could seize the occasion for denouncing the 
world’s corruption. From the heights of literature in the 
“Spectator” the subject descends to the depths in the 
works of men like Tom Brown and D’Urfey. In a “ Visit 
from the Shades” (1704) Collier was introduced holding 
a colloquy with Joe Haynes, the actor, and in “ The 
Stage-Beau toss’d in a blanket: or hypocrisy a la mode”’ 


128 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


(attributed to Tom Brown) a Collierite is exposed by an 
easy formula, furnished by Tartuffe, wherein the hypoc- 
risy of the over-virtuous is unmasked when the pious 
fraud makes love too recklessly. Settle, too, borrows an 
idea from the “ Knight of the Burning Pestle” to ridicule 
the citizens’ prejudice against the theater. Leaping from 
these extremes of frivolity to the opposite extreme of seri- 
ousness, we find that the terrible storm in November, 1703 
(best remembered because of the reference to it in Addi- 
son’s famous metaphor), which killed many and destroyed, 
among other buildings, the theater in Dorset Garden, was 
looked upon as “a dreadful judgment against the nation 
for the impieties of the play houses,’”+ and. that a special 
pamphlet called “ Mr. Collier’s dissuasive from the play 
house, in a letter to a person of quality, occasion’d by the 
late calamity of the tempest’ (1703) was printed for the 
occasion. 

Dennis made the Voltairian comment that the storm 
covered a very large area, so “ that the Divine vengeance 
which they [1.e. the theaters] brought down upon us has 
involv’d the very innocent. Not only the poor inhabitants 
of Cologne, but the very Hamburgers and Dantzichers, and 
all the people of the Baltak, have suffer’d for the enormi- 
ties of our English theaters; tho’ I believe in my con- 
science they have never so much as heard of a play.” But 
such irony was lost on a Bedford, who seriously replied to 
a complaint that it was hardly fair that innocent sailors 
should share the vengeance intended for London by saying 
that they were one of the foundations of England’s great- 
ness and hence a likely object to be visited with God’s 
wrath against England. 

Much of the mass of controversy which we are consider- 
ing is anonymous, and even among the names which have 

1 Bedford. Serious Reflections, etc. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 129 


survived none is that of a man with half of Collier’s 
arresting power. Probably John Dennis and Arthur Bed- , 
ford deserve best to be remembered, though Dennis is | 
certainly heavy, and Bedford is interesting only as a curi- 
ous example of fanaticism. The latter was an industrious 
pedant who, after taking his M.A. at Brasenose in 1691, 
became chaplain to the Duke of Bedford and later in life 
to Frederick, Prince of Wales. He was so unworldly as — 
to be completely out of touch with the world, and seems 
to have divided his time between various studies and 
puritanical fulmination. His mind was of a type which 
found congenial the most unprofitable parts of Collier’s 
book—the narrow asceticism and the most super-ingen- 
ious twisting of innocent phrases into blasphemous ones — 
and the actual appearance oi actors in Bristol, where he 
lived, spurred him to a furious denunciation. If to his 
opinion concerning the great storm (already cited) we add 
that he believed that God had given great success to 
certain medical baths in order to reduce the prosperity of 
the people of Bath who had permitted acting, we shall get 
some idea of the fanaticism, but not of the awful tedium, 
of his books. 

The worst is called ‘The Evil and Danger of Stage- 
Plays: Shewing their natural tendency to destroy religion, 
and introduce a general corruption of manners; in almost 
two thousand instances, taken from the plays of the two 
last years, against all the methods lately used for their 
reformation” (1706). The title gives a sufficient hint as 
to its contents. Collier and most of the other controversi- 
alists are at least readable. Bedford certainly is not. 
This volume of 227 pages is hardly a book, but a catalog. 
The margins are not wide enough to hold all the page 
references for the 2000 cases of profaneness and immorality 
together with the notations of chapters and verses of the 


130 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Scriptural texts which condemn them, so that these lists 
usurp the place of the text. Had Lamb known “ The Evil 
and Danger etc.,’ he would certainly have included it 
among his list of “ things in book’s clothing! ” The volume 
may be called scholarly. About 30 biblical texts are given 
to prove that swearing is a sin before we are informed 
that conversation which contains such phrases as “ Death 
and Furies” is so bad that ‘the bare repetition of such 
unparalleled blasphemy, will make the flesh tremble, and 
the blood grow cold.” Abundant references to page and 
line in printed play-books are given, so that anyone may 
see for himself how in different plays characters ‘‘ Wish 
that they may be damn’d, die, or rot, chang’d, confounded, 
stricken blind, or stupid, that the devil may take them,” 
and how on page 58, line 309, of “An Act at Oxford” 
appears this crowning horror: ‘‘ May the devil choke me 
upon a red herring.” Thus Bedford collects his 2000 in- 
stances by means of an unequal eye for blasphemy and 
profaneness, so that an innocent song like the following: 


“To Fortune give immortal praise, 
Fortune depresses and can raise. 
All is as Fortune shall bestow 
’Tis Fortune governs all below.” 


becomes terrible blasphemy, because it attributes to a 
heathen God what belongs only to Providence. 

Similar extravagances may be found in Bedford’s other 
books. ‘A Serious Remonstrance, etc.” goes even further 
than “The Evil and Danger, etc.,”” and includes almost 
“7000 instances, taken out of the plays of the present 
century,’ which show the “ plain tendency ” of the stage 
“to overthrow all piety, and advance the interest and 
honor of the devil in the world.” It begins with “ the 
catalogue of about 1400 texts of Scripture, which are men- 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 131 


tioned in the treatise, either as ridicul’d and expos’d by the 
stage, or as opposite to their present practices.” The list 
is long because Bedford found evil everywhere. The lines 
from “ The ’Squire of Alsatia ”’: 


“But never solid joy could find, 
Where I my charming Sylvia miss’d.” 


are proclaimed doubly sinful: first, because they use 
“ charming ” in a favorable sense, when it is a plain teach- 
ing of the Bible that all magic and charms are from the 
devil: and second, because they are a defiance of Psalm 
IV, “Lord, lift thou up ‘the light of Thy countenance 
upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart.” The idea 
apparently is that the lover in the play, by declaring the 
impossibility of finding joy’ where his mistress is not, is 
considered as denying God’s power to gladden the heart. 
Bedford had simply pushed other-worldliness to a point 
where any phrase not saturated with an immediate sense 
of the presence of the Hebraic God must be ranked as 
blasphemous. 

Appalling as such works are, they cannot be neglected 
by a student either of the present subject or the intellec- 
tual life of the time, for Bedford was not recognized as a 
fool by his contemporaries. Defoe read him with approval, 


and Defoe represents the prevailing mental attitude of a 


large class of people of narrow but genuine piety. Bedford 
represented merely the extreme of the spirit generally wide-’ 
spread —the spirit of the once dominant Puritan. The 
bulk of even the middle class would not go to the extreme 
of Bedford’s unworldliness, but it understood nothing and 
eared nothing for the purely literary excellence of the 
Restoration drama. It was interested by literature and 
might perhaps be amused at the theater, but it demanded 
that no amusement, literary or otherwise, should outrage 


132 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


its fundamental notions. The general attitude of this 


moderate middle class was well expressed in the anony- | 


mous ‘“ A Letter to A. H. Esq.,”+ which appeared shortly 
after the “Short View.” The author favors a reformed 
stage and remarks that, as to Collier, “ He has his faults, 
but they are such as I wou’d not have lost his book for.” 
Among all the books which form the controversy there 
is scarcely one, even among those written by the drama- 
tists themselves, which does not admit that there have been 
- abuses, and there are practically no defenses of the status 
quo. To this extent Collier had won an undoubted 
~ triumph. 

Some of the other books listed in the bibliography are 
almost as foolish as the “ Evil and Danger,’ but not all. 
It represents simply an extreme, and in many others there 
are attempts to settle, on the basis of a less fanatical idea 
of the permissible, the questions which Collier had raised. 
The man moderately inclined to conventional morality had 
been awakened to the fact that he should be flagrantly out- 
raged by a Restoration comedy. He was convinced that 
it could not be justified, and was now moved to wonder 
whether or not all drama was indefensible. Criticism was 
again face to face with the old question of the justification 
of literature, and it attempted to lay down rules and 
define methods by means of which a comedy to which 
reasonable men could not object could be produced. Of 
course such an attempt, in so far as it tried to be rigidly 
logical and definite, failed, since comedy is a wild jade 
that refuses to be bound; but certain ideas which were de- 
veloped, and above all the general admission made by 
practically all the controversialists that comedy should be 
morally instructive, succeeded in producing the profound 


1 Probably Anthony Horneck of the Societies for the Reformation 
of Manners. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 133 


modification which dramatic writing underwent. We shall 
turn, then, to an examination not of the individual books 
but of the drift of argument which they represented. 

It has already been pointed out in the chapter on Collier / 
that at the base of many attacks on the stage lay the 
fundamental ascetic objection to all art that appealed to. 

™ worldly interest and a love of life, since it is a part of the 
wise man and the Christian to hate all such things. As- 
ceticism in bare and philosophical form is not particularly 
congenial to the English mind, but Calvinistic asceticism 
is plainly the background of the rather barbarous pedantry 
of men like the journalist George Ridpath and some of the 
authors of the amazing pamphlets in the literature of this 
controversy. Moreover it had found full philosophical 
expression in the French controversy concerning the stage, 
with which Collier was certainly familiar, since he made 
a translation from Bossuet under the title of “‘ Maxims and 
Reflections upon Plays.” The best expression in English 
of this fundamental objection to the stage is found in a 
translation from the works of Armand de Bourbon, Prince 
de Conti (a brother of “the grand Condé”), who in the 
latter part of a tumultuous life fell into an excess of de- 
votion and wrote among other things a “ Traité de la 
Comédie” which was published shortly after his death in 
1666. It was answered by the Abbé d’Aubignac, and was 
published in English in 1711. 

To the Prince de Conti the stage became simply one 
of the expressions of the lust of the flesh which it was 
necessary to suppress. ‘‘ A Christian having renounc’d the 
world, its pomp and pleasure, cannot seek pleasure for 
itself, nor diversion for the sake of diversion. It must 
(that he may use it without sin) be in some manner nec- 
essary for him,” and the stage is not necessary. Moreover, 
the whole subject matter of dramatic literature is nec- 


134 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


essarily un-Christian, for the Christian virtues are not 
dramatic. Corneille writes plays which are clean, but 
ambition, revenge, and above all love are his subjects. All 
of these are essentially un-Christian, but to treat of love 
is especially so, for the Christian is the enemy of all sexual 
passion, and sexual love is the subject of most plays. 
Love, though lawfully exercised, “is nevertheless always 
evil and irregular in itself, and it is not allowable to excite 
it in one’s self or others. We ought always to look on it 
‘as the shameful effect of sin, as a source of poison capable 
to infect us every minute.” 'To make plays clean is to 
make them more rather than less dangerous, for when they 
are not fair-seeming the world more readily avoids them. 

No English writer expressed this ascetic idea in its logi- 
cal purity so well, though William Law came nearest to 
it; and Law was, like the Prince de Conti, a mystic, and his 
mind, worked in the same way. To him also it is not a 
question of good plays or bad plays, because to him-all 
imaginative representations of this sinful world are nec- 
essarily sinful. He has nothing to say of the reform of 
the stage, for he does not believe that it is possible to re- 
form it. To him the stage is sinful “not as things that 
may only be the occasion of sin, but such as are in their 
own nature grossly sinful.” Theater-going is “ contrary to 
the whole nature of religion,” and ‘to talk of the lawful- 
ness and unlawfulness of the stage is fully as absurd, as 
contrary to the plain nature of things, as to talk of the 
unlawfulness and mischief of the service of the church.” 
His logic is unanswerable. The theater represents the 
world and is necessarily worldly. Worldliness is anti- 
Christian, therefore the theater is anti-Christian. He de- 
scribes a mask of Apollo and Venus then playing. The 
opening scene, he says, shows Venus and the pleasures 


and, as Law asks, “ Now how is it possible, that such a. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 135 


scene as this should be fit for the entertainment of Chris- 
tians? Can Venus and her Graces and Pleasures talk any 
language that is like themselves, but what must be unlike 
the spirit of Christianity? ” 

A similar spirit is expressed in a few other pamphlets. 
A play, no matter how moral in intention and instructive 
in fable, is represented in a spirit of frivolity, and the 
gaiety of the stage is considered inconsistent with the spirit 
of that religion which commands us to crucify the flesh 
and to turn away the eyes from vanity.* 

Such a spirit offered, of course, no basis for a compro- 
mise, and had it animated the bulk of the people, not even 
a Steele could have been effectual, for it would have been 
logically necessary not only that the theaters be closed 
but that the “Spectator” itself be suppressed. In reply 
to ascetic objections, one could only translate a play like 
Racine’s “‘ Esther” and call attention to its innocence, or 
summon the authority of some devotee as Motteux did 
that of the Rev. Father Caffaro, whose opinions concern- 
ing the usefulness of a theoretically perfect stage Motteux 
printed as a preface to “Beauty in Distress” (1698) .? 
Caffaro thought that the actual stage was for the most 
part lewd and immoral, but that there was no fundamental 
objection to the institution. Holy Writ, he says, is silent 
on the subject, and hence one may fall back upon reason. 
He cites the authority of Thomas Aquinas, who ranks 
play-going among lawful diversions. To this it was’ 
replied * that if the Bible does not specifically condemn’ 


1 Conduct of the Stage. Some Considerations on the Danger of 
Going to Plays. 

2 Caffaro was an Italian Monk and a Professor of the University 
of Paris. He had retracted his opinions in favor of the theater in 
1694. 

8 The Stage Condemn'd. 


136 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


plays it does so implicitly, for if plays teach immorality, 
‘then no one can defend them, and if they teach morality, 


‘they are nevertheless bad, for God has appointed other 


‘means for the teaching of morality, and “ that which God 
-hath appointed sufficient means to accomplish it is unlaw- 
‘ful for men to appoint other means to accomplish.” 

It does considerable credit to the perspicacity of John 
Dennis that he saw more clearly than anyone else that 
such ideas lay at the back of even Collier’s mind; that 
quibbles such as Congreve and Vanbrugh indulged in got 
nowhere; and that had they proved their plays as innocent 
as they wished, Collier and Bedford would have still 
found abundant cause for disapproval. Dennis saw that 
there was involved a fundamental question of the value.of 
are ae and he set himself to formulate a moral but 
not in itself an evil, but that mankind lives for happiness. 
And happiness, he says, is concerned with the passions 
and comes only through such exercise of them as does not 
result in a conflict with the will. Since, then, happiness 
comes only through the rational exercise of the passions, to 
destroy them as the ascetics demand is to make happiness 
impossible. Drama arouses the rational passions, and is 
therefore useful to the happiness of mankind. A man who 
is familiar with the theater is less easily moved than one 
who is not, and therefore to say that the drama unduly 
stimulates the passions is false, for the theater-goer is less 
likely than another to be swept away by irrational emo- 
tion. It is true that plays may stimulate pride, but a 
good play will stimulate only a good sort of pride, for 
pride is not always sinful, but may, as in the case of 
patriotism, constitute a virtue. The question of love he 
also meets squarely. Only a bad play will encourage law- 
less love, but to encourage virtuous love.is.to.perform a 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 137 


service rather than, as some would have it, to stimulate a 
vice." 

Aside from the general consideration of the antipathy 
between the stage and the spirit of Christianity, the re- 
former made much of the specific objections which had 
been offered at different times by the pagan philosophers 
and the church. Collier had emphasized the fact that in 
the early church players had been excommunicated, and 
that Lactantius, Augustine, Ambrose, and others had 
shown hostility, while Tertullian had devoted a whole 
treatise, “‘ De Spectaculis,” to the subject. The latter is, 
in fact, Tertullian’s most famous work, for it contains the 
passage, made famous by Gibbon, in which is described the 
joy which the saved experience in watching the tortures of 
the damned. To the modern mind some of the Father’s 
arguments seem somewhat far-fetched, as when he men- 
tions the depreciation of God involved when we lift up to 
him hands which have applauded a player, or finds that to 
wear the tragic buskins is to defy that text which denies 
the possibility of adding a cubit to one’s stature. Still 
Tertullian was not one whit more fantastic than Bedford, 
and Congreve and Wycherley were solemnly brought up 
before Tertullian for judgment. 

This argument from authority was a favorite one and 
was taken up by many. The writings of the pagan philoso- 
phers as well as the Church Fathers, and the records of 
all the church councils, were ransacked for statements 
unfavorable to the stage, and an impressive collection was 
gathered by huddling together everything from blanket 
condemnations of the dramatist and all his works down to 
statements as mild as that of Aristotle, who, though he 
had written the most famous treatise on the drama, did 


1 The Usefulness of the Stage, etc. and The Stage Acquitt’d ad- 
vance similar arguments. 


138 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


remark that the young should not be allowed to see 
comedies. One writer‘ cites sixteen church councils 
which occurred between 305 and 1617, all of which disap- 
proved in some way of the stage. The violence of the 
decrees ranges all the way from that of a council in Africa 
in 409 which proclaimed that “Stage plays are against 
the commandments of God” (which is certainly strong 
enough) to that pronounced at Cologne in 1549, which 
went no further than to forbid comedies in nunneries. 
Attention is also called to the fact that in England Brad- 
wardine ‘‘ wrote against the stage in 1345,” that Wycliff 
in his “ De Causa Dei” records his disapproval of plays, 
and that Archbishop Parker in ‘De Antiquitate Eccle- 
siae”’ says ‘‘that stage plays are not to be suffer’d in any 
Christian or well govern’d commonwealth.” Among more 
recent English ecclesiastics, Baxter, Wesley and Dr. 
Horneck had spoken against the stage. 

To most of these arguments from authority there was 
some sort of answer. The theater was pagan in its origin, 
and the Fathers opposed it only for this reason, since they 
feared the fostering of pagan influence through the con- 
tinuation of a pagan institution, but they could have had 
no possible objection to a properly managed Christian 
drama.” Dennis attacks the authority of the Fathers, 
and asks Collier roundly whether he is Catholic or Protes- 
tant, and how, if he is the latter, he can presume to cite 
the authority of the Fathers as inspired. If they were not 
inspired, then their opinions were subject to revision in the 
light of reason. To this Collier could only reply that they 
were not inspired, but that their purity of character made 
them the next thing to it. 


1 George Ridpath (?). The Stage Condemm'd, etc. 
2 Dennis. Usefulness of the Stage, ete. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 139 


The arguments taken from the pagan philosophers were 
likely to turn out double edged. One writer had called 
attention to the fact that Ovid recommended the theater as 
a favorable place in which to seek for a mistress, where- 
upon another pointed out that if this was to be considered 
conclusive, then it ought to be remembered that it involved 
the church also, for Ovid had mentioned the temple as 
the next best place. If Plato’s republic was to be taken as 
a model, then it must be remembered that he advocated 
a community of women as well as the expulsion of actors. 

More significant than such quibblings was the argument 
of the defenders of plays that, since the pagan stage was 
not at all the same thing as the modern one, no opinions 
concerning the former had any weight. The old shows were 
admittedly immoral and scandalous, and Collier and others, 
in citing the opinions of the ancients concerning them, 
had confused pantomime and the spectacles of the arena 
with the drama, though there was no similarity between 
them. Much learned quibbling followed as to what might 
and what might not be fairly translated as “theater” or 
“play.” Most of all this was irrelevant. The many pages 
of quotations from ancient writers might have made a good 
history of the opinions of antiquity concerning the classical 
stage, but they had little to do with what English people 
should think of their theater. Its condition offered a good 
problem to a critic, and Collier showed at first some dis- 
_ position to consider it, but he and his enemies and friends 
continually wandered off into the, for them, easier field 
of pedantry, and were constantly harking back to Greece 
and Rome, and leaving Wycherley and Congreve in order 
to argue over Plautus and Terence. 

Next in importance to the attitude of the church was the 


1 Edward Filmer. A Defense of Plays. 


140 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


attitude of the state. Historical citations showed that 
from ancient times to the present, the stage had been fre- 
quently subject to regulation and at times to suppression. 
Constantine, the first of the Christian emperors, is said 
to have abolished it.1 Other writers pointed out that this 
did not outweigh the fact that it had been usually at least 
tolerated.* 

Collier and Bedford were of course members of the 
Church of England,’ and it cannot but have been a thorn in 
their side that opposition to the stage in England had been 


~ most closely connected with the Puritans. Collier had been 


already accused of disloyalty, and this gave point to Cib- 
ber’s remark: “I think the last time they pull’d down the 
stage in the city, they set up a scaffold at court.”* Ac- 
cordingly, probably neither Collier nor Bedford was much 
pleased by the elaborate book “ The Stage Condemn’d ” 
(probably by George Ridpath) in which the whole con- 
troversy is moved to the political plane, and that corrupt 
institution, the theater, traced directly to popery and the 
Church of England. Ridpath was a violent Whig. He 
assumes that the stage is damnable, but lays the blame 
for its existence on the clergy, and declares that Collier’s 
abuse of the stage is inconsistent with his allegiance to 
the Stuarts who encouraged it. He points out that though 
Tertullian, Jerome, Ambrose, and other lesser known 
Fathers attacked the stage, Laud and his associates left 
it to the Puritan Prynne to speak against this great evil, 
while they promulgated the Book of Sports, and that 


1 Stage Condemn'd. 

2 Filmer. 

3 Collier was a non-juror. Hence it would be more accurate to 
say that he had been a member of the Church of England. At 
least, his sympathies would not be with the dissenters. 

* Preface to Love Makes a Man. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 141 


Charles I, whom Collier must regard as a saint, held a 
mask on Sunday in which Imposture appeared in the guise 
of a Puritan. Ridpath holds the school system equally 
blamable with the court. Origen declares that those of 
an amorous turn should avoid reading the Canticles, yet 
these are read in schools, where the heathen poets, who 
were inspired by Satan to advocate wickedness, are also 
read. His implied remedy, is of course, a return to Puri- 
tanism. Ridpath’s is the spirit that smashed organs and 
knocked the heads off the statues in Gothic cathedrals. 
Prynne is his ideal, and the latter’s appalling book, in 
which few modern readers have been able to get beyond 
the portentous title page, he praises as being “ perhaps the 
largest, learned, and most elaborate” that has ever been 
written on the subject. 

Ridpath was replied to in “ The Stage Acquitted,” where 
the author neatly reverses his argument. Ridpath had 
said, in effect, that plays were bad, that the English Gov- 
ernment and Church had continuously encouraged them, 
and that therefore the English Government and Church 
were bad. His opponent says that the Church and Govern- 
ment have encouraged plays, that the Church and Gov- 
ernment are good, and that therefore plays are good. St. 
Charles is as good, he maintains, as St. Chrysostom. As 
to Wesley, Horneck, and the others, they have spoken only 
of the abuses of the stage. Properly regulated drama, he 
maintains, teaches morality; and consequently a friend of 
virtue must defend it. Its value, he says, depends entirely 
on the manner in which you take it. St. Paul read plays 
to get morality, for he takes his famous phrase “ Evil 
communication corrupts good manners” from a Greek 
play. Collier would do well to follow his example instead 
of reading them in order to collect smut. As to Prynne, 
he-was an enemy of the church and the state as well as of 


142 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


the theater. Ridpath, he maintains in conclusion, has only 
succeeded in proving that various vicious men have at- 
tacked the stage. 

Dennis (to whom Ridpath replies) had already at- 
tempted to settle the question of the relation of the state 
and the theater by reference to general principles which are 
laid down in his “ The Usefulness of the Stage, etc.” The 
abuses, he admits, are so great that there is a necessity 
for reforming them; and he declares that he would have 
praised Collier for his attack had Collier not in his last 
chapter showed himself the enemy of the stage itself, 
whereas it is, Dennis maintains, useful not only to religion 
and morality but also directly to the state. Public diver- 
sions are necessary for the contentment of the people, and, 
consequently, for the safety of the state. The theater is the 
best possible public diversion. In Greece, Rome, France, 
and England the period of the best national drama coin- 
cides with the period of the greatest national glory. Plays 
chastise the passions, show the disastrous effects of bad 
‘government and public tumult, and inspire patriotism and 
‘a noble union in the face of public enemies. The English 
‘people are by nature more inclined to tumult than any 
other, and consequently more particularly in need of the 
stage. Collier perhaps wished to suppress the stage in 
order more easily to foment the rebellion. 

Such discussion of the expediency or inexpediency of 
permitting a theoretically perfect stage left untouched 
Collier’s indictment of the vices of contemporary plays, 
an indictment which his followers had made more and 
more sweeping. The defenders, practically without excep- 
tion, admitted there was much to be amended, but they 
had to concern themselves first of all with a defense of 
the stage from the condemnation in toto, and usually 


admitted with Dennis “ there is no defending the immoral- . 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 143 


ity, or immodesty, or unnecessary profaneness of some 
of our plays.” They merely wished to prove that plays 
might be innocent for, as Cibber said,’ the lawyers and 
clergymen of the Restoration had not been above reproach, 
and if they were to be allowed to reform, why should not 
the players be given an equal opportunity? Perhaps the 
opinion of the largest number of pamphleteers could be 


summarized thus: ‘“ There may.be.an-innocent»representa~ 


tion of persons and actions.in.a dramatic. way; yet. play- 
houses as they have been, and..generally. are managed, 
ought not to be frequented by Christians.” ? 

‘Laying aside, then, the question as to whether or not 
the stage was, in itself, essentially evil, we find the pam- 


phleteers engaged in discussing just where the actual : 
contemporary comedies were evil, and attempting to lay | 


down the laws which should embody the characteristics of 
innocent or instructive drama. Practically nothing new is 
added to Collier’s general charges against prevailing con- 
ditions, but while many of those who wished to defend the 
stage were inclined to admit that there were grounds 
for these charges in many cases, they saw, nevertheless, 
that the method of procedure used by Bedford and others 
led simply to finding blasphemy and irreligion in every 
representation of life, and saw the necessity of drawing 
the line so as to admit of the representation of evil on 
the stage. Clearly, if you were to have bad men in your 
plays, you could not represent them talking like saints, 
yet if swearing and blasphemy are put into plays, it must 
be to show the ridiculousness of evil men. Smut, said 
Filmer, is not dangerous in itself, nor is swearing a con- 
tempt of God if it is shown in a vicious character. If the 
stage is to castigate faults, it must show them. But Collier 


1 Preface to Love Makes a Man. 
2 Conduct of the Stage. 


a? ee oe 


fs. 


144 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


would have none of this. Profaneness, he said, is perni- 


CEE 


cious even if it is punished. It is’a” rime in itself, “the 
baré pronouncing makes the crime; the guilt sticks upon 
the syllables, and ’tis a sin in the sound.” The poets pro- 
tested that they did not speak for themselves, but this he 
called no defense.t You would not swear before a lady, 
he said; to which Filmer replied that if nothing happened 
on the stage but what might happen in a drawing room, 
you could have no drama. Nor could you have had any 
drama which would please Collier. 

Similar reply and counter-reply occupied themselves 
with Collier’s objection that the playwrights made vicious 


‘characters triumphant heroes. Vanbrugh and Congreve 
‘urged that it was unfair to attach to themselves the senti- 
‘ments of their heroes, or to suppose that an author nec- 
-essarily approved of all that his characters said. Realism 
‘demanded that playwrights show persons as they were, 
-and vices must be depicted if they were to be satirized. 


t 


‘Of course their characters are vicious, for Aristotle says 
that comedy is the imitation of the worst sort of people, 
j and that it is the purpose of comedy to laugh them out of 
‘ their vices. The examples are put there not for imitation 


but for caution. But Collier was not content, for, he said * 
that the dramatist “treats loose characters with sense and 


respect, provokes to imitation, and makes infection — 


catching.” 


Collier’s insistence that the nobility and clergy should 


‘be exempt from satire also aroused much discussion. If 


; there were evil clergymen, why, it was asked, should they 
‘not be ridiculed? After all, the wicked parson is the 


1 Further Vindication of the Short View, ete. 
2 Drake. Ancient and Modern Stages Surveyed. 
3 A Second Defense of the Short View, etc. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 145 


most dangerous villain on earth, it was argued;? and until 
virtue comes to be conferred along with the title, there is 
no reason why one should not present a foolish or evil 
nobleman on the stage.’ 

In fact, says Drake, only evil or ridiculous noblemen 
have any right in comedy. Filmer makes the curious point 
that no Anglican priest should be ridiculed upon the stage, 
but that this exemption does not apply to dissenters. To ,. 
Collier’s statement that the clergy should be shown in 
plays only when surrounded by worldly power and respect, 
Vanbrugh answered scornfully that it must then be con- 
cluded “that Christ and his Apostles took the thing by 
the wrong handle, and that the Pope and his Cardinals 
have much refin’d upon ’em in the policy of instruction.” 

Some. writers fell back on the pure argument.of.realism. 
There was nothing, they maintained, in plays that could 
not be matched in life,* and the corruption of the times was 
not due.to..plays, which only reflected what. already 
existed.* “‘ Plays were ever counted the genuine history of 
the age; and if their opposers wou’d have innocent enter- 
tainment, and leave poetry honorable example for imitation 
and instruction, ’tis but each amending himself; then not 
the little but the great stage of life, will be so reform’d, 
and in a state more suitable to wish, than possible to 


life.”> Vanbrugh put the argument for instruction through \~ 


realism very neatly as follows: “‘ The stage is a glass for 
the world to view itself in; people ought therefore to see 
themselves as they are; if it makes their faces too fair, 


1 Immorality of the English Pulyt, ete. 

2 Drake. Ancient and Modern Stages Surveyed, etc. 
3 Thomas Baker. An Act at Oxford. 

* Dennis. Usefulness of the Stage, etc. 

5 An Act at Oxford. 


| 
; 


a 


Ea 


hx 
7 . a 


146 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


they won’t know they are dirty, and by consequence will 
neglect to wash ’em.” 

The difficulty of the simple argument that whatever 
is in life may be in literature was that, unless it could be 
proved that such realism tended to make people virtuous, 
it went directly contrary to the cardinal doctrine of 
pseudo-classical criticism, that the purpose of literature is 
to teach virtue, and that..it_does..this. by..showing lite 
not as it is but as it ought to be. The old dramatists 
defended themselves sometimes by refusing to admit the 
validity of this principle, but the practical playwrights of 
the early eighteenth century assumed, on the other hand, 
the conventional critical attitude. I have already pointed 
out in an earlier chapter how under the Restoration the 
ideal of the dramatist was that of realism, wit, and polish, 
but as_a_result..of the conflict which I have been de- 
scribing the dramatists. themselves._took up a completely 
new attitude, so that not only the moralists but the dra- 


matic critic and the playwright himself assumed as funda- 
mental the moral purpose of the drama. That idea, which 


had, as it were, lain dormant and confined to pseudo-classi- 
cal theory, became the leading principle not only of 
popular critics like Dennis and Addison but also of the 
most successful dramatists like Steele and Cibber. Dennis 
falls back on pure pseudo-classical theory.“ A Dramatie 
Fable,’ he says, ‘is a discourse invented to form the 
manners by instruction disguised under the allegory of an 
action;”’+ and from Dacier he borrows the idea that 
tragedy is but a sugar-coated pill for those who cannot 
swallow pure philosophy. 

With this principle universally admitted, there remains 
still the question how plays were to be constructed to ful- 
fill their purpose. In the case of tragedy it was compara- ~ 

1 Stage Defended, ete. 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 147 


tively easy. The downfall of the evil characters and the 
traditional speeches full of philosophy and morality might 
be fairly considered as constituting moral instruction. But 
with comedy it was different. It had to represent, as 
Aristotle said, the worst sort of people, and its theory 
demanded that it should provoke laughter. How was this 
to be made instructive? The Restoration Comedy writers | 
had, when pushed, declared that they wrote for instruction, | 
but the reformers failed to consider their works edifying | 
and.practically all. the defenders. of the stage admitted ; 
that tl the old comedy was full of abuses and that if the © 
stage was to be defended’ it must be reformed. The — 
enemies of the stage said that the vicious characters which 
had. been represented uttered smut and blasphemy, that 
they. seenied frequently to be marked out not for contempt™ 
but.for admiration and imitation, and that certainly they 
did. not make for virtue. Dennis, it is true, maintained 
that such plays as “Sir Fopling Flutter” were satirically 
instructive, but not many theorists agreed with him. Some 
new method must be found. 

The easiest solution seemed to lie in the old doctrine 


of poetic justice, which all agreed might be applied to 


tragedy. Might it not be extended to comedy? Filmer, in 
one of the most elaborate discussions of the stage, main- 


tained the doctrine unconditionally. The stage should be 


reformed, he said, not as Collier would have it, by the 
abolition of vicious characters, but by rendering the ex- 
ample of such characters instructive by “a constant pro- 
portionate reward of virtue, and punishment of vice;” and 
this, as we shall see later, was exactly what Steele advo- 
cated and practiced. Dennis, though he was an advocate 
of poetic justice in tragedy, would not admit that it was 


applicable to comedy. The method of comedy, he said, 


<br 


falling back again upon a doctrine taken from pseudo- 


? er 
7” me A 


148 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


, classicism, was to punish vices only by means of the 


laughter which the audience directed against them. Just 


‘what position was arrived at and put into practice will 
be seen in the two concluding chapters, which deal with 
the new drama and the theory behind it. At present we are 
more directly concerned with the controversy which voiced 
the protest against the old comedy. 

I have had occasion to mention by name by no means 
all of the forty-odd items listed in the bibliography of the 
literature of this controversy. I have, however, found and 
read all except those marked with an asterisk,’ and, as the 
various books and pamphlets involve endless repetition, 
I think that they contain no point of view not alluded to. 
Their interest lies chiefly in their bulk, which shows how 
enduring was the interest in the questions involved, and in 
the variety of their methods of presentation, which shows 
that every class was appealed to. Collier’s book contains 
something of interest to nearly every class. Others were 

_more special. Only readers fond of rather heavy specula- 
‘tion could have been interested by the treatises of Filmer 
or Dennis; and only the pedantically pious would have 
understood much of Bedford’s book, so overladen with the 
imposing pedantry of endless citation. But on the other 
hand there were a large number of unpretentious pam- 
phlets, such as “Mr. Collier’s Dissuasive from the Play 
House, etc.,” or “Some Consideration about the Dangers 
of Going to Plays,” in which journalists and popular 
preachers presented in brief and simple form the charges 
against the stage. If we add to them Steele’s papers, to 
be discussed later, it 1s evident that every class was ad- 
dressed, and that no class failed to take some interest in 
the question of the stage. If we remember, also, that 
hardly a writer fails to admit that something might be 


1 See Bibliography. 


4 


THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE STAGE 149 


said against plays as they were constituted, it is easy to 
see that there existed a spirit of dissatisfaction that was 
bound to react on the theater. The general public was 
familiar with three questions: Is the theater a permissible 
institution? Is it its duty to teach morality? Can com- 
edies : best teach morality by administering Poetic Justice? 


ta 
me 


—. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND 
THE STAGE 


Tuat the attack on the stage came at an opportune 
moment when a movement toward a_reform in life and a 


-change of tone in literature had already begun has been 


_stated, though not yet illustrated. In 1698 the reformation 
“of manners was already an old story, but the reformation 


_of literature was newer, and obviously the two movements 
were closely connected. But as Collier’s attack came early 


in the literary movement, one is faced with the problem of 
determining to what extent he is responsible for it, and 
how far he may be said to be responsible for the change 
which took place in the drama. Most historians of the 


_ stage have been inclined to attribute to him a large share 
* of whatever credit may be due for transforming a brilliant 


_ but immoral tradition into a dull and moral one. It was 
the orthodox view of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- — 
; turies that he was largely responsible. In the early eight- — 
-eenth century any mention of the reform of the stage 


(as in the “ Comparison of the Two Stages’’) was likely to 
be linked with his name. Cibber says that his work had 
a very wholesome effect; Davies says that the dramatists, 
“though unwilling to reform themselves, at last found, in 
Collier, a severe but just corrector of their indecencies and 
blasphemy.” ‘‘ The physic he administered,’ Davies con- 
tinues, “ was so powerful, that a sudden and almost effec- 
tual reformation took place.”+ Nichols? remarks that “ it 

1 Dramatic Miscellanies. Vol. III. 

2 Literary Anecdotes. Vol. I, p. 342 n. 

150 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 151 


is allowed on all hands, that the decorum which has been 
for the most part observed by the later writers of dramatic 
poetry is entirely owing to the animadversions of Collier ”’; 
and Macaulay (as usual) goes the whole way, both in the 
“Comic Dramatists of the Restoration” and in the “ His- 
tory of England.” In the former he remarks that “A 
great and rapid reform in all the departments of our lighter 
literature was the effect of his labors,” and in the latter 
that “he is well entitled to grateful and respectful men- 
tion; for to his eloquence and courage is to be chiefly as- 
eribed the purification of our lighter literature from that 
foul taint which had been contracted during the Anti- 
puritan reaction.” 

But a startling difference of opinion now exists. The 
average seeker after light on this subject would turn natu- 
rally to Ward’s “History of English Dramatic Poetry ”’ 
and to “The Cambridge History of English Literature,” 
but if he did so he would be much puzzled, for in the former 
he would read: “in truth, the position in which he 
(Collier) stood . . . . had been proved impregnable. From 
this time forward a marked change becomes visible both 
in the attitude of the Court, Government, and of a section 
at least of the ruling classes, towards the stage, and in its 
own consciousness of the purposes and restrictions proper 
to the exercise of its art;”?t and in Mr. Whibley’s chapter 
in the Cambridge History? he would read: ‘“ The poets 
bowed their knee not an inch in obedience to Collier. They 
replied to him, they abused him, and they went their way. 
Congreve’s true answer was not his Amendments. but..The 
Way_of the.World. ... The pages of Genest . .. make 
evident the complete failure of Collier’s attack.’”’ To add 
still further to the confusion of the authorities, it may be 


1 Vol. III. 
2 Vol. VIII. 


152 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


added that Beljame also regards “The Way of the World ” 
and ‘The Provok’d Husband” as in a way answers to 
Collier, but that, unlike Whibley, he thinks that in them 
the authors “ se montrérent plus retenus quills ne l’avaient 
été jusque-la.”’ 

From what has been said of Collier’s position, it is ob- 
vious that Ward’s statement that it was impregnable can- 
not be true unless we admit that the position that the stage 
is inherently damnable is impregnable, and, on the other 
hand, if as Mr. Whibley maintains, the attack failed com- 
pletely, we must find some other explanation for the change 
which certainly did take place about this time, and which 
at least produced a new species of comedy if it did not 
immediately annihilate the old. Ward certainly has tradi- 
tion on his side, but before we can come to a conclusion, 


three questions will have to be considered. First, we 
must determine to what extent _a general. reform movement. 


existed, aside from the Collier controversy... Second,.we 


must inquire how much conviction Collier and his party — 


carried, and how much action they. aroused, .. Third, .we 
must analyze just what happened to the dramatie-tradition 
and discover just when it happened. The present chapter 
will be concerned with the first two of these questions, and 
the next with the third. 

The orgy of dissipation into which the ruling class 
plunged after the Restoration could not possibly last. 


England was not, like the Roman Empire, decadent and — 


hence destined to wear itself out and die. The mass of 
the people was still probably even narrowly pious, pru- 
dent, and sane, and the condition at the court itself was the 
result rather of a triumph over a party which had made 
virtue hateful than of a radical decay. As the effects of 
the reaction passed, English moderation naturally reas- 


serted itself. As long as the Merry Monarch lived, the i 


> 
> 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 153 


tradition of debauchery would have a strong support; but 
when he had died and James had run his brief and con- 
temptible career as libertine and bigot, William brought 
a new age. No adjective could be less applicable to him 
than “merry.” Saturnine and able, he cared nothing for 
literature or for the stage, which had occupied so much of 
Charles’ thought. He was not to be seen with Tom 
D’Urfey on his shoulder, he did not forgive incompetence 
and corruption because of an able wit. Mary was fond 
of plays, and had at least sufficient leniency to admire 
Congreve, but she was also interested in reform, and wan- 
ton indecency could no longer look for support and ex- 
ample at court. Libertinism was naturally becoming less 
fashionable. As time passed, the social tradition probably 
changed more rapidly than the dramatic, and the plays of 
1685 mirrored more truly court ideals than did those of 
1695, which followed preceding drama rather than actual 
life. 

Besides its influence on the social life of the upper class, 
the revolution had another effect. It tended to give the 
middle class a new importance in government. and hence 
helped it to a voice in literary matters. Books and the 
theater became less and less the affair only of the aris- 
regular in life but also less capable of regarding literature 
with moral detachment, made its influence felt. Early in 
the eighteenth century, at least, it found voice in the 


_ hewspapers of Defoe and of Tutchin. 


The middle class is inclined to care more for what is 
said than for the manner of saying it, and with the pass- 
ing of the seventeenth century passed also the age of pure 
wit. The Restoration prided itself especially on polish and 
sophistication, and no quality was prized above that of 
saying a sharp thing. It was willing to forgive the im- 


154 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


morality of a play if it could be sure of its brilliance. 
Even Mary, so Cibber tells us, though she disapproved 
strongly of ‘The Rover” witnessed it because of her 
admiration for the brilliant acting of the man who played 
the hero. 

The age of Anne also admired the power of expression, 
but it wanted morality in addition. Pope is very different 
from Congreve and Rochester, and Steele’s success in his 
plan to moralize wit was too complete not to show that 
people were no longer satisfied with mere brillance if it 
outraged their sense of propriety. The merits of the Res- 
toration Comedy had been purely intellectual ones. The 
merit of polish had become a sufficient excuse for all 
things. As Wolseley had said, wit might be just as good 
in treating a filthy subject as in treating a clean one. 
Moderation, however, began to assert itself, and there arose 
a controversy on the subject of wit which throws con- 
siderable light on the intellectual movement of the times. 
“Solid men” were exasperated by the supreme tribute 
paid to brilliance, and the serious-minded tended to depre- 
ciate paradox. As early as 1695 the satire ‘A Reflection 
on our Modern Poetry” entered a protest. The dedica- 
tion points out that “ Poetry is no longer a fit trainer up 
of youth, a bridler of the passions, and exorbitant desires: 
But on the contrary, he is reckoned to be the ablest poet, 
that is most dexterous, at crying up these evil spirits, to 
disturb the calm and quiet of the soul.” Sir Richard 
Blackmore rose as a representative of that class in which 
moderation was somewhat closely related to dullness, and 
became the arch enemy of wit. Wit had, indeed, become 
almost a disease with which everyone was infected. No 
character in comedy is more frequent than that of the 
empty-headed beau who sets up for a wit, and the more 
moderate part of society was not wholly wrong in feeling 


= 7 eae, 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 155 


that truth was being neglected in the worship of epigram 
and paradox. The distemper, we learn from a play,’ 
spread in the town like the itch, so that even the tradesman 
had caught it, and would rather offend his customers than 
stifle a jest. 

Sir Richard Blackmore was a physician, and so he 
undertook to cure the general disease, beginning with “A 
Satyr against Wit” (1700) in which he writes: 

“Who can forbear and tamely silent sit; 
And see his native land undone by wit. 
* * > *K * * K 


“How happy were the old unpolished times 
As free from wit as other modern crimes? 


* * cs K *k *K * 


They justly wit and fool believ’d the same, 
And jester was for both the common name. 
The mob of wit is up to storm the town, 
And pull all virtue and right reason down. 
Quite to subvert religion’s sacred fence 

To set up wit, and pull down common sense.” 


He received a satiric reply from the wits, but found others 
willing to share his views. Dennis, who was emphatically 
not a wit, and is said to have hated a pun above everything 
else, is driven to exclaim: “ That it is not wit, but reason 
which distinguishes a man of sense from a fool.’”’? The 
“True Born Englishman” is not a wit and so one is not 
surprised to find Defoe writing in “ The Pacificator”’: 


“The men of sense against the men of wit, 
Eternal fighting must determine it,” 


or to see that in his extraordinary ‘“ The History of the 
Devil” he refers, in a chapter heading, to the wits as the 
devil’s “particular modern privy counsellors.” 


1 Epistle Dedicatory to The Comical Gallant. 1702. 
* Baker. The Humor of the Age. 1701. 


+} 


156 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


There is a real significance in this controversy over wit 
versus sense. The age of Anne was an age of reason, not 
only in its opposition to mysticism, but also in its reac- 
tion against the physically and politically destructive 
moral anarchy of the Restoration. In a criticism of 
Fletcher’s “The Scornful Lady” Steele attacks hotly the 
“corruption of mind, that makes men resent offenses 
against their virtue, less than those against their under- 
standing. An author shall write as if he thought that 
there was not one man of honor or woman of chastity in 
the house, and come off with applause; for an insult upon 


all the ten commandments with the little critic is not so . 


bad as the breach of unity of time and place.” Again: 
“A thing which is blamable in itself, grows still more so 
by the success in the execution of it.” This is, of course, 
a direct denial of Wolseley’s doctrine. Blackmore returned 
to the attack in a prose essay + where he attempted to con- 
sider the subject philosophically. Wit he treats as a dan- 
gerous indulgence which is often the enemy of truth and 
encourages a distaste for intellectual pursuits. The men 
most characterized by its possession, he says, are often 
lacking in prudence, and more likely than others to fall 
into debauchery. Parents are warned to encourage their 
children in intellectual pursuits instead of refining their 
conversation. All this would have seemed the most bar- 
baric heresy to a Restoration gallant proud of England’s 
new-found urbanity. But it represented the spirit of the 
new age, and mere wit disappears rapidly from the drama 
as the eighteenth century advances. Addison in “ The 
Freeholder”? replies to Blackmore, but goes only so far 
as to maintain the value of properly directed raillery. 
The final flower of middle-class protests against all 


1 Published in Essays upon Several Subjects. 1716. 
2 No. 45. May 25, 1716. 


a 


ay 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 157 


glitter not strictly sensible is found in the so-called Bour- 
geois Tragedy. This is usually supposed to begin with 
Lillo’s “ George Barnwell” (1731), but it had its fore- 
runner in earlier comedy, which expressed the ideals of 
the middle class. In the early days when the theater had 
been only an amusement of the upper class, the bourgeois 
was not particularly concerned, but in the literature of the 
Collier controversy there is much stress on the ill effect of 
plays upon the middle class, and the theater is attacked 
not only on strictly moral grounds but also on the charge 
that it tends to undermine the industry and application 
necessary for success in trade. In this connection especial 
interest attaches to a few sentences which occur in the 
essay “Of Plays and Masquerades.”+ ‘“ They [plays] 
give a wrong notion of things, they undermine industry by 
representing life in a more romantic aspect than is actually 
true and thus give the mind a distaste of all that is com- 
mon—how odd a turn is this for a man who must keep 
plodding on, with a mind intent upon his business, and be 
contented to drive as it will go?” Collier might speak 
for the learnedly religious, but here is the authentic voice 
of a nation of shop keepers. Eighteenth-century comedy 
tries to meet this objection by stressing the more ordinary 
virtues, and “ George Barnwell” makes a definite appeal 
to the middle class by insisting on the virtue of the mer- 
chant and the nobility of his trade. 

During the Collier controversy, the middle class, be- 
cause of its predisposition, lent support to the reformers 
of the stage. It found voice in Defoe and Tutchin, both 
of whom conducted political newspapers. The latter was 
particularly violent, declaring that the play house was the 


1 Published in A Collection of the Occasional Papers for the year 
1708, an anonymous collection of moralizing essays by various au- 
thors. 


158 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


devil’s chapel, and Defoe in his. writings makes many ref- 
erences to the theater. He advocates the suppression of 
acting and the purchase of the theater by funds raised 
among the pious,” but he is not always, however, so violent. 
He devoted a whole number of “A Review, etc.’ * to a 
discussion of the opening of the new theater in the Hay- 
market, and while entirely unsatisfied with the perform- 
ance which he saw there, rightly enough undertook to lay 
the blame rather on the public than upon the actors or 
playwrights. More sensibly than most of the reformers 
he writes as follows: “ But, gentlemen and ladies, if you 
would have a reformation in the play house, you must 
reform your taste of wit, and let the poet see, you can 
relish a play, tho’ there be neither baudry nor blasphemy 
in it.” He urges the audience to show its disapproval of 
any improprieties no matter how wittily expressed, and 
continues: ‘I cannot be without so much charity for our 
players, as to believe this of them: They cannot be men 
of action, without being men of sense, and as they are 
the latter, they could not but be as well pleased with what 
was clean, handsome and well perform’d, when it came 
from the pure channel of honor and virtue, as from the 
black Stygian lake of nastiness and corruption, —in short, 
the errors of the stage lie all in the auditory; the actors, 
and the poets, are their honorable servants, and being 
good judges of what will please, are forced to write and 


1 See The Observator, March, 1703. Also Vol. I, 95 and Vol. II, 
40, 57, 59, 78, 90, 91. 

2 Wilson’s “ Life of Defoe,” Vol. III, p. 69. In An Account of 
some remarkable passages in the life of a private gentleman ete. 
(1708) sometimes incorrectly attributed to Defoe, the hero com- 
plains of his wicked companion who “seduced me to see a play” 
and then proceeds to a sort of summary of Collier’s charges against 
the theater. 

3 Vol. II, No. 26. 


“ 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 159 


act with all the aggravation and excesses possible, that 


they may not be undone and ruin’d, lose both their reputa- 
tion and their employment.” ! 

From what has been said in a previous chapter it will 
be evident that the beginning of the general protest against | 
the completely unethical attitude towards literature ante- / 
dated Collier’s attack on the stage, but that it was intensi- ; 
fied by that attack and was hardly prominent before it. | 
The movement for the reformation of actual manners is | 
traceable considerably further back. It found its most | 
tangible expression in the “Societies for the Reformation | 
of Manners,” organizations of enthusiasts which existed for | 
many years, and about which there gathers a truly im- | 
pressive bulk of printed matter, though their history has 
never been written in modern times. Burnet mentions 
them, and Lecky takes his short account mainly from sec- 
ondary sources. The best contemporary history is “An 
Account of the Rise and Progress of the Religious Societies 
in the City of London and of their endeavors for reforma- 
tion of manners,’ by the Rev. Josiah Woodward, which 


reached what was called the sixth edition in 1744. 


The beginning of the Societies for the Reformation of 
Manners is obscure, but it is bound up with that of cer- 
tain “ Religious Societies’? which had a less definitely 
practical purpose. Burnet traces the origin of the latter 
societies to the reign of James II, when a fear of popery 
led to gatherings of religious persons similar to those which 
had been held formerly only among the dissenters. After 
the Revolution, Burnet continues, these societies deter- 


1 Swift cared nothing for the theater, but in A Project for the 
Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners (1709) 
devotes a paragraph to the stage. His tone would indicate that 
he had read Collier with approval although the name is not 
mentioned. 


160 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


mined to inform magistrates of the names of swearers, 
drunkards, profaners of the Sabbath, keepers of lewd 
houses, etc., and hence they came to be called “ Societies 
of Reformation.” In the beginning, he says, they were 


conducted chiefly by Dr. Beveridge and Dr. Horneck, and © 


he adds that as soon as Queen Mary heard of them she 
encouraged the good work by letter and proclamation. 
The information given in “An Account of the Rise and 
Progress of the Religious Societies, etc.” (1744) + does not 
differ materially from that of Burnet except that it places 
the origin of the societies as far back as 1678 and mentions 
the aid of Bishop Stillingfleet in enlisting the sympathy of 
Queen Mary. One hears most about the societies in the 
early years of the eighteenth century, but the “ Proposal 
for a National Reformation of Manners,— also the Black 
Roll, containing the names and crimes of several hundred 
persons who have been prosecuted by the Society, for 
whoring, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, etc., published by 


the Society for the Reformation, etc.,” published in 1694, — 


shows that they were very active in the nineties. In an- 
other account of the Society published in 1701 its members 
are described as consisting of four different groups: One 
of parliament members, justices of the peace and the like; 
a second which occupies itself chiefly against lewd houses 
of which 500 are said to have been suppressed; a third 
consisting of constables; and a fourth consisting of young 
men banded together for the purpose of giving information. 
As its beginning, so the end of the Society was obscure. 
It flourished mightily for a number of years, and seems 


1 I do not know when the first account of the Societies was 
published, but the second edition of “ An Account of the Rise and 
Progress of Religious Societies in the City of London etc.,” is 
entered in the Stationer’s Register for 1698, and there is a so-called 
14th edition in 1706. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 16i 


to have become more and more closely associated with 
the Methodist movement, for it is said that in 1763 nearly 
half of its members were of that sect.* 

At any rate it lived and flourished until the close of the 
period we are considering, and, whatever its origin and 
conclusion, created a tremendous stir in the life of the 
period. To give even a bibliography of the large number 
of publications which it called forth, such as sermons 
preached before the societies, remonstrances and admoni- 
tions to magistrates, pleas for a general reformation, etc., 
would occupy more space than we have at our disposal. 
Further mention of the Society may be found in the vari- 
ous editions of Chamberlayne’s “ Angliae Notitia, or the 
Present Stage of England.” The Societies were, appar- 
ently, not confined to London, but spread to various pro- 
vincial cities also. 

They depended as much on coercion as on persuasion, 
and were determined to “ prove their doctrine orthodox, by 
apostolic blows and knocks.” Their habit of acting as 
informers seems to have aroused some scruples against 
such methods, which find expression in a sermon preached 
1709 by the famous Dr. Sacheverell,? who speaks of good 
nature and compassion and asks: “Do not these as 
strictly command us not to thrust ourselves pragmatically 
into his [our neighbor’s] business, or meddle with those 
concerns that do not belong to us, or under the sanctify’d 
pretense of reformation of manners, to turn informer, as- 
sume an odious and factitious office, arrogantly entrench 
upon other’s Christian liberty, and innocence and under 
show of more zeal than purity—turn the world upside 


*1 See Tyerman’s Life and Times of Samuel Wesley. Tyerman 

says that from 1730 to 1757 the Society was inactive, but the 

British Museum contains a 43rd Annual Report for the year 1738. 
2 The Communication of Sin. 


162 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


down, and all mankind into quarrels and confusions? ” 
But the peppery Doctor no doubt smelled dissent under 
the more-pious-than-thou attitude. He was replied to in 
more than one pamphlet,! and the work of reformation 
went merrily on. The story? of a holy war in Lincolnshire 
is amusing. It seems that even in Cromwell’s days it had 
been impossible to break up the custom of spending the 
three Sundays. after Lammas in horse racing and other 


diversions, but that certain serious minded persons gathered - 


together an army of parsons, constables, and others, so 
strong “that the whole multitude were over-awed and 
put to flight,—so that on such Lord’s days, when there 
used to be many hundreds of this lewd mob, you could 
only have beheld several decent ministers with their con- 
stables walking around; or, if any vain person looked that 
way, their care was, to flee with such speed as might secure 
themselves from apprehension.” 

The Society acted in a vigorous and wholesale fashion, 


and had a passion for statistics. Tract distribution was — 


one of its activities, and by 1720 upward of 400,000 tracts 
are said to have been distributed. Prosecution of the pro- 
fane and scandalous became a sort of popular sport, and 
we find little hand-books of instructions for informers and 
magistrates, in which the laws against profaneness and 
blank forms for informing are published, along with cau- 
tionary rules for the safe practice of the diversion. A 
folio sheet which was published is also interesting. It is 
called: “A sixth black list of the names and reputed 


1 “ Remarks upon a sermon preached by Dr. Henry Sachaverell at 
the assizes held at Derby ... containing a just and moderate 
defense of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, ete.” (1711); 


“The Judgment of H. Sachaverell concerning Societies for Ref- — 


ormation of Manners, compared with the judgment of many of 
the Lords, ete.” (1711). 
2 Published in the 1744 Edition of An Account ete. 


f= | an i ewe 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 163 


names of 843 lewd and scandalous persons, who, by the 
endeavors of a society, for promoting a reformation of 
manners in the City of London and suburbs thereof, have 
been legally prosecuted and convicted — all of which (be- 
sides the prosecution of many notorious cursers, swearers, 
Sabbath-breakers, and drunkards, not here included) have 
been effected by the Society aforesaid, since the printing 
of the former list, which consisted of 3,859 persons.” 
Similar lists were apparently published annually for a 
number of years, and we learn from the one for the year 
ending Christmas, 1708, that 626 people had been pro- 
ceeded against during that year for cursing and swearing. 
When one reads‘ that in the forty years just passed about 
98,970 people had been prosecuted, one wonders that the 
Justices of the Peace were not over-tasked. 

- Naturally the play houses were not overlooked. As 
early as 1694? it is proposed ‘“ To supplicate their majes- 
ties, that the public play-houses may be suppressed,” and 
argued that while such diversions may be lawful for the 
recreation of princes, public dramatic entertainments are 
unadvisable for all people making even a pretense to Godli- 
hess, since all agree that “in these houses, piety is strongly 
ridiculed, the holy reverend and dreadful name of God 
profaned, and his glory and interest rendered contemptible 
or vile.” The account of the Society published in 1701, 
and already referred to more than once, remarks that 
“Blasphemy, was too often the wit and entertainment of 
our scandalous play-houses, and sincere religion became 
the jest and scorn of our courts in the late reign,” and 


1 The Nine and Thirtieth Account of the Progress made in the 
Cities of London and Westminster and places adjacent, by the 
Societies, etc. Published at the end of A. Bedford’s sermon before 
the society in 1734. 

2 Proposal for a National Reformation of Manners, etc. 


164 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


among the rules for the members of the Society was that 
they were “wholly to avoid lewd play-houses.”+ The 
arrest of the actors, to be mentioned later, was also no 
doubt due to their influence. 

Creating such a stir as they did, it is not surprising that 
these Societies came to be very well known, and helped 
to give general currency to the idea, very strong with the 
people of this time, that they were living in a reforming 
age. Some indication of the prominence of the Societies 
may be found in the fact that both the “ Tatler ”’ ? and the 
“Spectator ’’* mentioned them. The Tatler was himself 
a member, and in the “ Spectator”? was published a letter, 
a bit satiric, purporting to be from a very active partic- 
ipant in the work of the Society. He writes: “I am one 
of the directors of the Society for the Reformation of 
Manners, and therefore think myself a proper person for 
your correspondence —I can tell you the progress that 
virtue has made in all our cities, burroughs, and corpora- 
tions, and know as well the evil practices that are com- 
mitted in Berwick or Exeter as what is done in my own 
family — I can describe every parish by its impieties, and 
can tell you in which of our streets lewdness prevails; 
which gaming has taken the possession of, and where 
drunkenness has got the better of them both.” 

Cynics like Tom Brown might jibe: 


“*Tis now some years since drowsy reformation 
Rous’d its dull head, and saw its restoration; 
What influence has this upon the nation? 

Ye Rakehells of the Rose, let Rouse confess 
If at his house he draws one hogshead less. 


1 A Brief Account of the Nature, Rise and Progress, of the 
Societies for the Reformation, etc. Edinburgh. 1700. 

2 See No. 3, April 16, 1709. 

3 See No. 8, March 9, 1711. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 165 


And you intriguing sparks inquire of Jenny 
If it has baulk’d her of one baudy guinea. 
Is gaming grown a less destructive vice 


Or fewer families undone by dice? 
* * “ x * » * * * + 


“ Now let us cast our eyes upon the City, 

These (there?) are no vices—no—none that are witty. 
But frugal, gainful vices are for cits. 

They never swear, because for that they pay 

But they will lie— yes, —=in a trading way.” 1 


But the success of the reform movement was another tri- 
umph for the middle class in its struggle for recognition. 
The mention of it in the ‘“ Tatler” and ‘ Spectator” is 
sufficient to show that men of fashion and influence had 
been drawn into a participation in the middle class move- 
ment, but still stronger proofs are found in the account of 
the Societies published in 1701, which contains a declara- 
tion of approval signed by thirty-four Lords Temporal, 
nine Lords Spiritual, and seven Judges of England. In 
pursuance, too, of a special request by her Majesty, the 
poet laureate, Nahum Tate, combined with various other 
gentlemen to produce in 1713 twenty numbers of a poetical 
“Monitor” consisting of instructive verses “for the pro- 
moting of religion and virtue, and the suppressing of vice 
and immorality.” While it may be doubted whether or 
not such verses as the following, which begins a piece 
called ‘‘The Swearer,” 

“Of all the nauseous complicated crimes 

That both infect and stigmatize the times, 


There’s none that can with impious oaths compare, 
Where vice and folly have an equal share,” 


served any very useful purpose, either moral or aesthetic, 
still the “ Monitor” is another indication of the furor 
reformandi which had seized the nation. 


1 Epilogue to Stage Beau Toss’d in a Blanket. 1704. 


166 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


In this movement the government took a determined 
stand on the side of the Reformers. After the Revolution, 
the court no longer gave by example open encouragement 
to dissipation. It is true that Charles had, immediately 
upon his restoration, issued a proclamation against vicious 
and debauched persons which was published May 30, 
1660, and that James had done the same on the 29th 
day of June, 1688,” but neither of these was likely to be 
very effective as long as there was the example of extrava- 
gance at court. After the coming of William, however, 
all this was changed; and as for Anne, instead of encourag- 
ing her courtiers to disregard such proclamations ° (as 
Charles by his example had done), she mentioned particu- 
larly in her proclamation for the “ Encouragement of 
Piety and Virtue” (26th March, 1702) that debauchery 
was to be discouraged “‘ and ee olin in’ suchas" are 
employed near our Royal Persons;” and added “That for 


the greater encouragement of peuercnt and morality, We . 


will, upon all occasions, distinguish persons of piety and 
virtue by marks of our royal favor.” This proclamation 
was’ but one of a long series. William had considered the 
reformation of manners one of the dutiés 0fhis-mew~goy- 
ernioent. On January" 21; 169122 was isstéd"““ BY “the 
King and Queen, a proclamation against vicious, debauched 
and profane persons,”* in which it was noted that the 
laws had been neglected and that the King and Queen 
were moved by an address of the Bishop to command all 
Justices, Sheriffs, etc., “to execute the laws against blas- 
phemy, profane swearing and cursing, drunkenness, lewd- 
ness, prophanation of the Lord’s Day, etc.” On February 
9, 1697-8, the Commons desired William again to issue 


1 Sommers’ Tracts, Ed. 1812, Vol. VII. 
2 Published Copy in British Museum. 
3 Copy preserved in British Museum. 


i ee ee 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 167 


a proclamation for the enforcement of existing laws and 
added, moreover, “ since the examples of men in high and 
public station have a powerful influence upon the lives of 
others, we do most humbly beseech your Majesty, that 
all vice, profaneness and irreligion, may in a particular 
manner be discouraged, in those who have the honor to 
be employed near your Royal Persons.”* The King re- 
plied with request for a more effective law, and as a 
result there was passed on February 26th “ An Act for the 
more effective suppressing profaneness, immorality, and 
debauchery ”’ ; and in 1699 the King issued another proc- 
lamation. 

When Anne came to the throne she took up the 
fight. John Tutchin’s newspaper ‘“ The Observator” (No. 
91, March 3-6, 1702-3) speaks of ‘‘ Her Majesty’s new 
proclamation for the encouragement of piety and vir- 
tue, and for the preventing and punishing of vice, profane- 
‘ness and immorality, wherein she has generously pleased 
to direct and command all her judges of the assize, and 
justices of the peace, to give strict charges at their 
respective assizes and sessions, for the due prevention and 
punishment of all persons that shall presume to offend in 
any of the kinds afore mentioned.” And in the following 
number of the newspaper we are informed that the “ wits ”’ 
are offended by the proclamation. In the British Museum 
there is a published copy of a similar proclamation which 
is dated 26th June, 1702. Probably more than one was 
issued. From all this it is evident that the Societies for 
Reformation had the support of the Crown in their prose- 
cutions. 

Since the Societies for Reformation approved of legal 
coercion, it is not surprising to find that they tried this 
method in regard to the theater. The incident of the 

1 Cobbet’s Parliamentary History, Vol. V. 


168 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


arrest of the actors is a very curious one in theatrical 
history. Cibber mentions it and Gildon refers to the 
occurrence thus in his “ Comparison of the Two Stages ” 
(1702) : 

Sull (en): But did you hear the news? 

Ramb (le): What news? 

Sull (en): The trial between the play-houses and in- 
formers, for profane, immoral, lewd, scandalous, and 
I don’t know how many sad things, utter’d and spoken 
on the stage. 

Crit (ick): Who were the persons that spoke ’em, and 
what were the words? 

Sull (en): Betterton, Brace-girdle, Ben Jonson and 
others; but the words may not be repeated... . 

Sull (en): The two first were fined, but the latter 
escaped. 

Crit (ick): ’Tis fit both poet and player shoul’d be 
corrected for their immorality; but I do not like the 
accusation that passes thro’ such hands; ’tis often a 
question of truth, and at best there’s an alloy of cant 
and hypocrisy in their zeal.” 

Nearly all subsequent historians of the stage have men- 
tioned this matter of common tradition. But different 
authors give different dates, according to the source from 
which they derive their information, and no one seems to 
have taken the trouble to investigate. Owing to the in- 
complete and confused character of the legal records made 
at the time, and now preserved in the Public Records 
Office, it is impossible to give a full history of the affair, 
but I have collected some isolated fragments of informa- 
tion which are of interest. 

There are many difficulties and pitfalls. Mr. Gosse 
quotes! Narcissus Luttrell (May 12, 1698): ‘ The Justices 


1 English Men of Letters. Congreve. 


_ on 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 169 


of Middlesex did not only prosecute the play-houses, but 
also Mr. Congreve for writing the ‘Double Dealer,’ 
D’Urfey for ‘Don Quixote’ and Tonson and Brisco, book- 
sellers, for printing them.” Now this is very interesting as 
an illustration of the feeling against the persons mentioned, 
but it is likely to be misunderstood. A legal action ac- 
tually involving Congreve and D’Urfey would be very 
interesting and the records would probably be preserved, 
but it is extremely unlikely that any such legal action was 
taken. A note in Dawkes’ “ News-Letter” No. 297 (May 
12, 1698) presents the matter in a clearer light. It reads 
simply: “ Last day of the session, at the Old Baily, the 
grand jury of London delivered a presentment against all 
stage-plays and lotteries (which tend so much to the cor- 
ruption and debauchery of youth) and the Bench were 
pleased to say they would take the same into considera- 
tion.” The exact identity of dates makes it certain that 
Luttrell and the news letter refer to the same event, but a 
presentment to the grand jury is not a legal prosecution. 
Congreve and D’Urfey were probably not prosecuted, for if 
they had been it would most likely have been noted in 
Dawkes’ “ News-Letter.” The presentment of the grand 
jury means simply that certain citizens exhibited the 
popular prejudice against the stage and that they men- 
tioned it to the judge. He evidently let the mattter 
drop. 

But there were cases of actual trial and arrest. One of 
the controversial pamphletst makes mention of three al- 
leged trials. It states, first, that in 1699 several players 
were prosecuted in the Court of Common Pleas upon a 
statute of 3 Jac. I for profanely using the name of God 
on the stage, and that verdicts were obtained against them; 


1A Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Eng- 
lish Stage, etc. 1704. 


170 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


second, that in the Easter Term of 1701 the players of. 
one house were indicted at the King’s Bench Bar before the 
Right Honorable the Lord Chief Justice Holt for certain 
speeches contained in “ The Provok’d Wife’; third, that 
the players of the other house were indicted in the same 
term for expressions in “The Humour of the Age” and 
“Sir Courtly Nice,” but that owing to a technical error 
they were acquitted. 

Of the first of these trials I have been able to find no 
record. There is perhaps some error in the statement, 
since it is hard to see how a criminal charge could be 
considered by the Court of Common Pleas. The offense 
was a statutory one and consequently would be considered, 
as the other cases were considered, by the Court of the 
King’s Bench. 

I have, however, discovered documentary evidence which 
seems to concern the second instance mentioned above. 
In the Coram Rege Roll No. 2147 Michaelmas Term 13. 
William III* one may read, if he has the patience to 
decipher the obsolete handwriting and translate the bar- 
barous Latin, that in October of the 12th year of the reign 
of William III, Thomas Betterton, Thomas Doggett, John 
Bowman, Cave Underhill, Elizabeth Barry, George Bright, 
Elizabeth Bowman, and Abigail Lawson were charged in 
the Court of the King’s Bench with having set up a com- 
mon play-house in Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields in which the 
said Thomas Doggett on the 25th day of December in 
1700 “several times profanely and jestingly used the 
sacred name of God upon the public stage in the said 
theater —in the hearing of divers persons being then and 
there present in these words viz: ’K God there isn’t more 
fear of his head aching than my heart. ’E God I wowd be 
hanged first before I wowd be your husband. ’E God take 

1 Preserved in Public Records Office, London. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 171 


care of your own helm. ’E God I shall stick like pitch, 
God! TI’le tell you one thing.” and that the said Cave 
Underhill did on the said 5 and 20th day of December in 
the year aforesaid jestingly and profanely use the sacred 
name of God upon the public stage in the said theater. 
Cave Underhill and Abigail Lawson are similarly charged, 
and the indictment sets forth, in addition, that daily, 
Sundays excepted, between the 24th day of June and the 
12th day of February the players acted irreligious and 
immodest spectacles tending to excite to fornication and 
adultery, on account of which there resulted many evil 
deeds and the shedding of blood besides the corruption of 
youths and virgins to the great sorrow of their parents and 
friends. To all this the actors pleaded not guilty. 

In another part of the same roll it is charged that 
Thomas Betterton, Thomas Doggett, Cave Underhill, 
Elizabeth Barry, Ann Bracegirdle, George Bright, George 
Pack, and John Hodgson, did between the 24th day of 
June and the 7th day of March in the 13th year of 
William’s reign present a certain obscene, profane, and per- 
nicious comedy entitled “The Anatomist or Sham Doctor ” 
in which were contained the following obscene and pro- 
fane words: “I’me sure he left his breeches long ago the 
devil take him, a curse on his systol and dyastol with a 
pox to him, the devil fly away with him, the devil pick 
his bones.” The actors are further charged with having 
presented “ The Provok’d Wife,” from which a number of 
quotations are given, including the following: ‘‘ But more 
than all that, you must know I was afraid of being 
damn’d in those days for I kept sneaking cowardly com- 
pany, fellows that went to church and said grace to their 
meat, and had not the least tincture of quality about ’em 
—woman tempted me lust weaken’d and so the devil 
overcame me, as fell Adam so fell I.” .To this as to the 


172 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


other indictments the actors pleaded, through their at- 
torney Simon Harcourt, not guilty. 

It appears that the policy adopted by the actors was 
that of delay; for further information concerning the 
course of the case we must refer to the Rule Book,! where 
we read under the heading of Friday next after Michael- 
mas, 18th William III, that in the case of the King vs. 
Betterton and others a decree of “nihil dicunt” (i.e., 
judgment by default) will be entered unless the several 
defendants separately answer sufficiently by the following 
Wednesday. Then on the Thursday after the Morrow of 
All Souls of the same year it is entered that unless suffi- 
cient answer be made by Monday next, the decree “ nihil 
dicunt ” shall be entered. On that Monday there is an- 
other entry stating that unless sufficient answer is made 
by the following day the decree shall be entered peremp- 
torily against them. The next entry occurs on Satur- 
day after Christmas in the first year of the reign of 
Anne, and orders that separate recognisances of the de- 
fendants be estreated into the Exchequer. On the following 
Monday it is ordered that upon the payment of such costs 
as shall be taxed, and upon the withdrawing of the indict- 
ment at the first session of the next term, the estreat of 
the recognisances of the defendants shall cease, and on 
Wednesday on the Morrow of the Purification of the Virgins 
it is ordered that the estreat of the recognisances of Thomas 


Betterton and Elizabeth Verbruggen shall cease until next — 


term.” 


1 Public Records Office. King’s Bench 21-26. 

2 In this case a recognisance is an agreement to appear in court 
at a certain time. An estreat of a recognisance is a process by 
which a recognisance, forfeited by a failure to appear, is made the 
basis of a plea for judgment by default. The stopping of an 
estreat of a recognisance is a blocking of this attempt to gain a 
judgment by default. 


o— hg eee 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 173 


These records inform us merely that the case dragged on 
into the reign of Anne and that the actors had consider- 
able success in securing delays. I have not been able to 
find any further records of the case in the legal documents 
themselves, but fortunately further information may be 
derived from two letters preserved among the records of 
the Lord Chamberlain’s office.t. Since these letters have 
never been published and are very interesting I give them 
in full. 

The first is particularly interesting since it refers to 
Betterton. It was overlooked by Mr. Lowe in his inter- 
esting life of that actor. 

To the Queens most Excell 
Majt® The humble Petition | 
of Thomas Betterton Eliza- 
beth Barry, Ann Bracegirdle 
& others Your Maj"*s Come- 
dians Acting in the New 
Theatre in Little Lincoln’s 
Inn-fields. 
Sheweth 

That ever since the happy Restauration of your Royal 
Uncle King Charles the second (of ever blessed memory) 
for prevention of any indecent expressions in any playes 
which might be Acted, The Lord Chamberlaine of the 
Household for the time being hath constantly restrained 
the acting of all new playes until they were first perused 
by the Ma:* of the Revells who used to expunge what- 
ever he thought unfitt to be acted. And your Petition:" 
ever since they have had the hono" to serve your Maj:"° 
and your Royal predecessors in that quality have con- 
stantly given all due obedience to the said order and have 
not been till very lately disturbed for acting any plays 

1 Public Records Office. L. C. 7-3. 


174 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


that had passed such examination, and always thought 
they might safely act any play so perused & approv’d by 
the Mae of the Revells — 
Notwithstanding which your Petition:* have been 
lately prosecuted by Indictmt for acting plays perused & 
approved as aforesaid in which were (as is alleged) divers 
expressions not lawful to be used and the petition:" have 
been put to great expenses and are yet prosecuted on 
such Indictment. 
To the end therefore since the prosecutors of such In- 
dictments are not satisfied with the method that hath soe 
long been used to prevent the Imorality of the Stage that 
your petition:'s may be quiet for the future. 
May it please your Maj‘* to give such orders and direc- 
tions as in your princely wisdom you shall think fitt for 
perusing & correcting plays prepared to be Acted, that 
your petition:" may not be misled to act any plays wherein 
may be contained any expressions that may give just oc- 
casion of offence and that the prosecution on such Indict- 
ment against your petition:"= may be stayed. 
And yo: Pet:™, (asin 
Duty bound shall ever pray 
ete. 

The second, which also has never been printed, follows. 
The Case of Geo: Bright. 
Comoe’: at y® Theatre in 
Lincols Inn fields. 

That some time since, y® saide Bright was playing his 
part, in y® play called S* Fopling Flutter, & in y® Con- 
clusion of his part, these words are Exprest (Please you 
Sir to Commission a young couple to go to bed to- 
gether a’ Gods name) w® being Lyconed & permited, y® 
said Bright did humbly conceive, yt there was neither 
imorality or prophainess therein, y® said Bright as well as 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 175 


sev: " others, having often Exprest y® said words publickly 
on y® stage, & no notice ever before taken thereof; But 
some maliciously buissy person or psons informing ag*t y°® 
said Bright have taken hold of y® Law, prosecuted him un- 
knowingly, & have surreptitiously obtained a_ verdict 
against him for 10 * besides Cost & Charges w** amounts to 
as much more, so y‘ the s. Bright is in Continual danger 
of being taken up for y® s?: 10 £: & Cost & committed to 
gaol. 

The said Bright therefore humbly Begs yo® Honor to 
consider the hardness of this his case, & hopes y* since 
the whole company are equally concerned in this matter, 
That you will be Pleased to Order it so, That y® s* Com- 
pany may be Equall sharers in y® payment of y® s¢ 10# 
w™ cost of suit, since by Law it is ordered to be paid or 
y* you would be pleased to protect him. Otherwise the s? 
Bright & family must suffer. 

This |[i.e. the law against profanity on the stage] was 
Enacted in y® 3d year of King Jeams Ist as appears by 
Keebles Collections & Statuts. 

These petitions are interesting in several respects. They 
bring up the whole question of the licensing of plays, a 
question which will be discussed presently; but they are 
quoted here only to show that in at least one case a large 
fine was actually assessed against an actor. 

The statement concerning the unsuccessful prosecution 
of the actors at the other theater, which was made by the 
author of “ A Representation of the Impiety and Profane- 
ness of the English Stage ’’ and quoted above, may also be 
given documentary support, but is less interesting. Among 
a collection of very much battered documents? may be 
found an indictment charging John Powell, John Mills, 
Robert Wilkes, Elizabeth Verbruggen, Mariah Oldfield, 

1 Public Records Office. King’s Bench 10-11 


176 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Benjamin Jonson, William Pinkman, William Bullock, 
Philip Griffin, Colly Cibber, and Jane Rogers with having 
acted, and continued to act after public notice, obscene 
and profane comedies in the theater called Drury Lane 
between the 24th day of June in the 12th year of the 
reign of William III and the 24th day of February in the 
13th year of the reign of William III. The specific 
passages on which the charge is based are taken from 
‘“Volpone, or the Fox,’ “The Humour of the Age,” and 
“Sir Courtly Nice.” They also pursued the method of 
delay and they were finally dismissed sine die. 

Strangely enough I have not been able to find in any 
contemporary source a definite statement concerning the 
conclusions of these attempts on the part of certain people 
to invoke the law against the actors. We do read, how- 
ever, in “The Laureat: or, The Right Side of Colly 
Cibber ” (Anon. 1740) that Anne stopped the prosecution 
by a noli prosequi. This seems extremely prohable, for 
though Anne promised to take the state of the stage under 
consideration, and certainly made efforts to reform it, the 
arrest of the actors was obviously unfair, and those who 
resorted to such methods showed only the intemperate zeal 
of reformers who can see no wrong except that against 
which they are incensed. Poor Bright was but a sub- 
ordinate, and to send him to jail for performing a play 
which his superiors, under the license of the Crown, had 
ordered him to act, was a manifest injustice. Moreover 
the Crown, as he pointed out, was morally bound to pro- 
tect him since the speeches for which he was convicted 
had been licensed by the Master of the Revels. As will 
be seen later, Anne or her ministers made an effort to deal 
with the situation through the instrumentality of that officer 


1 Coram Rege Roll. 2-147. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 177 


and so, no doubt, in fairness, stopped the prosecution of 
the actors. 

As an illustration of the widespread interest among the 
official class in the regulation of the stage may be cited a 
manuscript to be found in the library at Lambeth Palace.? 

It comes from Nahum Tate, Poet Laureate, and is as 
follows: 

A Proposal for Regulating the Stage & Stage-Players. 

All endeavors for a National Reformation being likely 
to prove Ineffectual without a Regulation of the Stage, 
the following is humbly offered to Consideration. 

First, that supervisors of Plays be appointed by the 
Government. Secondly, that all Plays (capable of being 
reform’d) be rectify’d by their Authors if Living — and 
proper Persons appointed to Alter and reform Those of 
Deceased Authors and neither old or modern Plays per- 
mitted to be acted till reform’d to the satisfaction of the 
S* supervisors. Thirdly, that sufficient Encouragement be 
for such Persons as make y® Aforesaid Alterations &c like- 
wise for supervisors, and Penalties upon Default in Either. 
And this Matter so adjusted as to have due Effect, as long 
as any Stage shall be Permitted. Fourthly, the Theatres 
& Actors to be Under Strict Discipline & Orders, that no 
gentlemen be suffered to come behind the Scenes, nor 
Women in Vizard-Masques admitted to see a Play &c. 
Such Regulation of Plays and Play-houses will not only 


1 Lambeth Misc. 933, Art. 57. This is from the miscellaneous 
collection belonging to Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, to 
whom it was perhaps sent, but in the opinion of the Reverend 
Claude Jenkins, Librarian at Lambeth Palace, the endorsement is 
in the handwriting of Archbishop Tenison. There is another manu- 
Script in Lambeth Palace (Misc. 953, Art. 131) which is a sort 
of memorandum or petition addressed “apparently to some eccle- 
Siastical authority and setting forth the evils of the stage. 


178 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


be a publique Benefitt, but also Beneficial to the Stage 
itself —if Continued: for whether the present stages be 
Reform’d or Silenc’d is left to the Government, but the 
one or Other is Absolutely necessary. 

[Endorsement.] Mr. Tate’s Proposal for Regulating 
the stage. Rec’d. Feb. 6, 1699. 

Particularly worthy of note is the fact that Tate speaks 
of his suggestion as valuable only in case it is decided 
not to suppress the theaters. So great indeed, was the 
outcry against them that this was evidently actually con- 
sidered, for Dennis in his ‘“ Person of Quality’s Answer 
etc.” (1721) tells us that “there was a warm report about 
town, that it had been twice debated in council, whether 
the theater should be shut up or continued.’”’ Moderate 
councils, however, prevailed. The documents quoted 
earlier show how earnest Anne, at least, was in her desire 
to regulate the stage, but she was not averse to plays 
herself and had no intention of listening too seriously to 
the fanatics. The orders which were sent out by the Lord 
Chamberlain show the method which she intended to 
pursue. | 

Since the court was on the side of reformed plays, it 
may well be asked why such reform could not have been 
easily brought about through the control nominally ex-— 
ercised by the Master of the Revels. There were two diffi- | 
culties. In the first place, the custom of actually censor- 
ing plays had fallen more or less into disuse, and in the 
second place, as the letter from Bright shows, plays which 
had been licensed in looser days no longer seemed ex- 
cusable, though they had legal sanction. For some reason, 
the records of the Lord Chamberlain’s office covering this 
period have never been published. An examination of 
them shows, however, that the Crown was extremely 
anxious to gain control over the drama on the ethical side, — 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 179 


but that it found it extremely hard to do so. Since these 
records have not been published, and this phase of the 
subject not fully studied by historians of the stage, I shall 
print some of the most interesting documents. 

There had never been such a thing as a technically free 
stage in London. In Elizabeth’s time the drama came, 
of course, under the control of the Master of the Revels, 
and there are recorded instances of his prohibition of cer- 
tain plays. Though he had considerable power, it is not 
likely that he influenced to any great extent the develop- 
ment of the Elizabethan drama.t When the theaters were 
reopened after the Restoration, Sir Henry Herbert, who 
had been Master of the Revels under Charles I, eagerly 
reassumed his supposed right to what he evidently looked 
upon as a profitable sinecure. The published records of 
his office show how assiduous he was in demanding tribute 
for the licensing of every sort of popular spectacle down 
to the exhibition of a ‘ monster,” but do not reveal any 
particular desire to regulate the stage, except in so far as 
it was financially profitable to do so.2_ When he died 
in 1673 and the office was handed over to Killegrew, the 
. latter apparently continued Herbert’s tradition, and so the 
office continued to be regarded chiefly as a source of 
revenue.?® 

From the order quoted below, it is evident that plays ~ 
were sometimes performed without having been licensed. 
Probably the fee was paid and no more said on the sub- 
* ject. Cibber states that this was the censor’s practice later. 
Now when the Crown had undertaken to reform society, 


1 Gildersleeve. Government Regulation of the Elizabethan 
Drama. 

2 The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, edited by Joseph 
Quincy Adams. These extend to 1673 only. 

3 Chambers. Apology for Believers in the Shakespeare Papers. 


180 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


and turned its attention to the stage, it discovered that 
it had lost the power of controlling the drama, and the 
records of the Lord Chamberlain’s office show a long and 
unsuccessful effort to regain this authority. On the 24th 
of January 1695-6 the Earl of Dorset, Lord Chamberlain, 
sent out the following order: 

Whereas several playes &c are Acted & prologues 
spoken wherein many things ought to be struck out and 
corrected, And y® plays approved and Licensed by y® 
Master of the Revells according to y® Antient Custome of 
His place and upon the Examination of the said Master 
I find that he complanes that of Late several new & Re- 
vived plays have been Acted at y® Theater of Drury Lane 
& Dorsett Gardens without any Licence And that of Late 
y° Managers of that Company have refused to send such 
play®’ to be purused Corrected & allowed by y® Master 
of y° Revels We therefore Order and Command that for 
y® future noe playes shall be Acted but such as shall first 
be sent (and that in due time) to Charles Killegrew Esq. 
Master of y® Reveles by him to be purused and diligently 
Corrected & Licensed And I Order all Persons concerned 
in the Management of both Companys to take notis hereof 
on y® Penalty of being Silenced according to y® Antient 
Custom of His place for such default And I Order all — 
y® said parties to pay to y® said Master His Antient Fees — 
for such new & revived plays soe Licensed And Doe fur- 
ther Order & Command the said Master to be very car- 
ful in Correcting all Obsenitys & other Scandalous matters 
& such as any ways Offend against y® Laws of God Good 
Manners or the Knowne Statutes of this Kingdome as hee 
will answer y® same to me Given under my hand & seal 
this 24th day of Janu 1692 in the seventh yeer of His 
Mates Reigne. 

Dorsett [i.e. Lord Chamberlain]* 
1 Public Records Office. L. C. 7-1. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 181 


This order seems to indicate a desire for a general 
tightening up. It is directed not only against the negli- 
gence of the players, but also against the Master of the 
Revels himself, who is ordered to take his office seriously. 
The sentence ‘‘ and that in due time” seems to indicate 
that copies of new plays had sometimes been submitted 
at the last moment under the assumption that only the 
payment of fees was required for licensing. 

Evidently all this did not have the desired effect, for on 
the 4th of June, 1697, we find Sunderland, then Lord 
Chamberlain, sending out the following order: 

Order to the Comedians in 
Lincolns Inn fields. 

Whereas I am informed that many of the new plays 
acted by both companys of his Maj* Comedians are scan- 
dalously lewd and Prophane, and contain Reflections 
against his Maj* Government. For Preventing therefore 
so notorious abuses for the time to Come I do hereby 
strictly order that you do not presume to Act any new 
Play till you shall have first brought it to my Secretary, 
and Receive my directions from him therein as you shall 
answer the Contrary att your Perill. Given under my 
hand and seal this 4th day of June, 1697. In the Ninth 
year of his Maj® Reign. 


Sunderland 


To Mr. Thomas Betterton and the rest of his Majesties 
Comedians Acting in Lincolns Inn Fields. 

The like order verbatim as above to the Pattentees for 
his Maj* Company of Comedians acting in Dorsett Garden 
and Drury Lane.* 

Two years later we have two more orders as follows: 


1 Lord Chamberlain’s Warrant Books. Public Records Office. 
L. C. 5-152. 


182 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Whereas I am informed that not w Standing an order 
lately made for the better regulating of the Stage: Severall 
new Plays have been since Acted containing expressions 
contrary to Religion and good manners. These are there- 
fore to Signify his Maj* Pleasure, that you take great 
care not to License any plays, wherein there are any such 
expressions, and if you shall find that at any time, either 
company of his Maj. Comedians do presume to Act any 
thing which you have though fitt to strike out, that you — 
immediately give notice thereof. Given under my hand 
this 18th of Februry In the Eleventh year of his Majs 
Reign. 

Pere: Bertie [i.e. Peregrine Bertie, 
Vice-Chamberlain ] 


To Charles Killegrew Esq., 

Master of the Revels; 

Whereas I am informed that notwithstanding an Order 
made the 4th of June 1697 by the Earl of Sunderland 
then Lord Chamberlaine of his Maj. Household to pre- 
vent the Profaness of the stage Several new Plays have 
lately been Acted, containing expressions contrary to 
Religion and good manners. And whereas the Master of — 
the Revells has Represented to me; that in contempt of © 
the said order, the Actors do often neglect to leave out 
such prophane expressions, as he has struck out. These — 
are therefore to Signify his Majesties Pleasure, that you | 
do not hereafter presume to act any thing in any new 
play, which the Master of the Revells shall think fitt to © 
be left out, as you shall answer it att your utmost perill. 
Given under my hand 10th of February. In the Eleventh © 
year of his Maj Reign. 

Pere: Bertie. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 183 


To Mr. Thomas Betterton & 
the rest of his Mat’. Comedians 
acting in Lincolns- Inn Fields. 

The like order verbatim to the Patenties for his Majes- 
ties Company of Comedians acting in Dorsett Garden or 
Drury Lane. 18 Feb. 1698-9.* 

Queen Anne inherited the difficulty from her predecessor, 
and her Lord Chamberlain made similar orders, as the 
following will show: 

Whereas Complant has been made yt notwithstanding 
y® severall orders lately made for y°® regulation of y° 
Stage, many of y® Old as well as New Plays are still 
acted w out due Care taken to leve out such Expressions 
as are contrary to Religion & Good Manners. And 
whereas I am informed that this Abuse is in great Meas- 
ure owing to y® Neglect of both Companys, by not 
sending Plays to y® Master of y® Revels, to be Licens’d 
but all y® Parts are got up, & y® play ready to be acted, 
by which Means his Censure & License cannot be so 
well observed And also that Prologues, Epilogues, & Songs 
w are often indecent are brought upon y® Stage w™ out 
his License. These are therefore to Signify her Majesty’s 
Special Command that you do not Presume to Act upon 
the Stage any Play New, or Old, containing Profane or 
Indecent Expressions which may give Offence. And that 
you hereafter bring y® Master of y® Revels fair Copys 
to be Licens’d of all Plays, Songs, Prologues, & Epilogues 
before they be given out in Parts to be study’d, & Acted, 
which copys so Licens’d shall be kept safe for you for 
your Justification— And you are hereby Requir’d not 
to fail in Observing these Orders upon pain of her Ma:* 


1 Lord Chamberlain’s Warrant Books. Public Records Office. 
pee; 6-152. 


184 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


high displeasure and being silenc’d from further Acting. 
Given under my hand, this 15th day of January in y® 
second year of her Majesty’s Reign. 

To y® Company of her Ma* Sworn Comedians Acting 
in. Little- Lincoln’s Inn- Fields. 

The like Warrant Verbatim was sent to the Company 
of Comedians Acting in Drury Lane.* 

Whereas I am informed that the orders hitherto made for 
Reformation of the Stage are yet ineffectual thro’ the 
Neglect of both Companies of Comedians in not sending 
Plays to you for your Inspection and License till they are 
ready to be acted, by which means, what you strike out 
as indecent, is often spoke upon the Stage and also that 
of late Several Prologues, Epilogues and Songs have not 
been brought to you for your License. 

I do therefore hereby Order you to take special Care not 
to License anything that is not Strictly agreeable to Re- 
ligion and good Manners And to give Notice to both the 
Companies of Comedians acting in Lincolns Inn Fields 
and Drury Lane that they do not presume to give out any 
New Play into parts before they have brought you a fair 
Copy thereof to be Licens’d; nor do presume to bring upon 
the Stage any Prologue, Epilogue or Song without your 
License, and if you shall at any time know that either 
Company do act any thing which you have thought fitt to 
strik out that you immediately give me Notice there of 
Given under my hand this 17th day of Jan’y in the second 
year of her Majesties Reign. 

To Charles Killegrew Esq. Master of the Revels to her 
Majesty. 7 

Jersey .t 

In these last orders two new features may be observed. 
First, great stress is laid on songs and epilogues (especially 
attacked in Collier’s book, which had by this time made 

1 Warrants of Several Sorts. Public Records Office. L. C. 5-153. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 185 


its impression) and second, a play containing “ profane 
and indecent expressions” is not to be permitted even 
though it has been formerly licensed. The phrase “ which 
copies so Licens’d shall be kept safe by you for your 
justification ” is evidently a reference to the arrest of the 
actors and no doubt a reply to Bright’s appeal for some 
means of security. Perhaps it coincides with the suspen- 
sion of prosecution against the actors. 

Unfortunately no records of the censor’s excisions seem 
to have been kept, but Cibber tells us that he became 
much more strict. The Censor’s activity, however, was 
founded only on tradition, and since that tradi had 
been allowed to lapse, it could not be effectively revived. 
Finally Cibber? flatly defied him and there was an end 
of an effective authority, although he continued to exist. 
This defiance, however, did not take place until after 
George I had granted a patent to Steele. Meanwhile, in 
1709, an elaborate set of rules was formulated for the 
Haymarket Theater which contains the following: ‘ That 
you forthwith prepare and transmitt to me an exact list 
of all such Comedyes you propose to act the next year 
that were Licens’d before her Majestys accession to the 
Crown, in Order to their being more carefully revis’d and 
new Licens’d by the Master of the Revells and that from 
and after Lady Day next you shall not suffer or permit 
any such play to be acted until it has received new license.” 

Anne (or her Ministers) was evidently anxious, in some 
measure, to satisfy the reformers, but she did not desire, as 
they did, the complete suppression of the stage. Nor did 
she show any inclination to take its management out of the 
hands of those men to whom the Reformers especially ob- 
jected. Bedford in the “ Evil and Danger of Stage Plays” 
notes triumphantly that her Majesty has been graciously 
pleased by letters patent, dated 14th of December 1705, to 

1 An Apology for His Life. Chapter VIII. 


186 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


authorize Sir John Vanbrugh and William Congreve to in- 
spect plays for the better reforming of abuses and immorali- 
ties. At first sight this looks like the establishment of a new 
sort. of censorship, which indeed Bedford took it to be. But 
such was not Anne’s intention. Bedford himself probably 
did not know just what he was referring to, or he would 
not have been so pleased, for the patent to which he refers 
provided for the establishment of a new theatrical com- 
pany that was established in the Haymarket. The war- 
rant does, indeed, begin as follows: 

Anne R 

Whereas We have thought fitt for the reforming the 
abuses, and Immorality of the Stage That a New Company 
of Comedians should be Established for our Service, under 
stricter Government and Regulations than have been 
formerly. 

We therefore reposing especial trust, and confidence in 
our trusty and welbeloved John Vanbrugh & Will™ Con- 
greve Esq. for the due Execution, and performance of this 
our Will and Pleasure, do Give and Grant unto them the s 
John Vanbrugh and Will™ Congreve full power and au- 
thority to form, constitute and Establish for us, a Com- 
pany of Comedians with full and free License to Act & 
Represent in any Convenient Place, during Our Pleasure 
all Comedys, Tragedies, Plays, Interludes, Operas, and 
to perform all other Theatricall and Musicall Entertain- 
ments Whatsoev’ and to Settle such Rules and Orders for 
the good Goverm® of the said Company, as the Chamber- 
lain of our Household shall from time to time direct and 
approve of. Given at our Court at St. James this 14th 
day of December in the third year of our Reign. 

By her Majestys Command 
Kent.* 


1 Warrant Books. Public Records Office L. C. 5-154. Congreve 
resigned his share in the management of the Company the same 
year. See Gosse’s Congreve in the Great Writers series. 


s 
ee ee 


ee ee 2 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 187 


But if Anne thought that this new project would con- 
ciliate the Reformers, she must have been greatly disap- 
pointed. Vanbrugh was, no doubt, a very suitable person - 
to manage a new theater, but the choice of him was not 
likely to please the party which had taken speeches from 
his plays as a basis for securing the arrest of the actors. 
Before the theater was opened, his appointment brought 
a protest from the Societies for the Reformation of Man- 
ners in an impudent pamphlet called “A Letter — To the 
Most Reverend Father in God, Thomas (Tenison) — Arch- 
Bishop of Canterbury” (1704). In it Vanbrugh is de- 
nounced as having debauched the stage “to a degree be- 
yond the looseness of all former times,” and the Arch- 
bishop is called upon to use his influence to prevent 
the confirmation of Vanbrugh’s appointment. The Society 
has, it says, been less active of late in attacking the theater 
because of confidence in the Queen’s statement that she 
had given special orders to the Master of the Revels for 
the correction of irregularities, but it has heard the general 
report that the management of the new theater in the 
Haymarket is to be intrusted to Vanbrugh, “ the known 
character of which gentleman has very much alarmed us, 
and a full consideration of which, has given us so warm 
a concern for Her Majesty’s honor, as to inform Your 
Grace, whose post and degree in the church and state 
give you so happy an opportunity of giving Her Majesty 
an account of these reports.” ‘‘ Tho’ this be given out 
both by him and his friends,’ the pamphlet ‘continues, 
“vet we must suspect the truth, because ’tis impossible 
that Her Majesty, who has declared against immorality 
and profaneness, and against these crimes on the stage, 
should act so directly contrary to the end she proposed, 
as to commit the management of the stage to that very 
man, who debauch’d it to a degree beyond the looseness 
of all former times. Both the present houses were in- 


188 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


dicted and found guilty by the court of Queen’s Bench, 
for the several obscene and profane expressions in the 
‘Relapse,’ ‘ Provok’d Wife,’ ‘False Friend,’ and the rest of 
his plays, in which he is not satisfied to reflect on the 
teachers of the Christian religion, but carries his impious 
fury as far as the church, morality, and religion itself.” 

The Reformers were certainly not won over by the open- 
ing of the new theater. Defoe, a good index of bourgeois 
opinion, devoted a whole number of his ‘‘ Review” (Vol. 
II, No. 26, 1705) to the event. Speaking ironically of the 
unfulfilled promise of reform, he falls into verse thus: 

“The fabrick’s finish’d, and the builders’ part, 
Has shown the reformation of his art, 


Bless’d with success, thus have their first essays, 
Reform’d their buildings, not reform’d their plays. 


* K *K K cs * * * * 


Never was charity so ill employ’d 
Vice so encourag’d, virtue so destroy’d.” 


The new theater had made a brave bid for popularity 
with the moderate element by beginning with Shirley’s 
“The Gamester,’”’ which had some claims to be considered 
a moral play. They were, however, indiscreet with their 
prologue, which contains the lines: 

“The architect must on dull order wait, 
But ’tis the poet only can create. 
* * *K * * * * 


In the good age of ghostly ignorance, 
How did cathedrals rise, and zeal advance! 


** * * * * *k *K 


“ But, now that pious pageantry’s no more, 
And the stages thrive, as churches did before.” 1 


The sentiment expressed in the last four of these lines 
was obviously not calculated to conciliate the clerical 
1 By Dr. Garth. 


a 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 189 


parties, and experience with the vagaries of the reformers 
should have warned the managers of the new theater that 
some one would find, as indeed Defoe did find, blasphemy 
even in the apparently innocent reference to the poet as 
the only creator. Bedford? finds this first performance at 
the Haymarket such “ That the horrid blasphemy is so 
rash, as to raise the blood at the reading thereof.” 

The reformers were, indeed, determined not to be satis- 
- fied under any circumstances, and did not wish it to be 
thought that any progress had been made towards a ref- 
ormation. Thus Bedford, in his “Evil and Danger of 
Stage Plays, etc.,” is careful to note that the two thousand 
instances of corruption which he has gathered are taken 
from the plays of the last two years “against all the 
methods lately used for their reform,’ and to analyze 
“The Gamester ” in orded to show how bad a supposedly 
moral play can be. He and his tribe wished the complete 
destruction of the stage and no reform would have satisfied 
them. 

The study of plays to be made in the next chapter will 
show that the movement for reform was producing very 
definite results, but much of the change came from within, 
and at no time during our period did the Crown succeed in 
gaining quite the power which it wished over the theaters. 
George I inherited Anne’s difficulty. But power seemed 
rather to slip from his hands than to accrue to him. 
Steele, in conjunction with Wilkes, Cibber, Doggett and 
Booth, received a theatrical patent signed 18th October 
1704.2, He replied with a petition* in which he showed 


1 “ Evil. and Danger of Stage Plays, etc.” (1706). 

2 Public Records Office. L. C. 7-3. 

8 Public Records Office. L. C. 5-156. I do not print this and 
the remaining documents referred to as they have already been 
published in Aitken’s Life of Richard Steele. 


ly fee S| 
i ee 


190 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


“That the use of the theater has for many years last 
past been much perverted to the great scandal of religion 
and good government” and protested that since the ref- 
ormation would be an arduous task, hd should be given 
power for the term of his natural life and for three years 
thereafter. This petition was referred to the attorney 
general, who replied with more words about the need for 
reforming the stage and with an expression of the opinion 
that such power might be given to Steele “ subject to such 
regulations as have been usual in grants of the like nature.” 
But on October 25th, 1718, we find a letter to the attorney 
general+ in which it is stated that the managers of Drury 
Lane refused to obey orders and regulations from the 
Lord Chamberlain. And on the 23rd of January, 1719, 
Steele’s license was revoked. 

Throughout this attempt to establish the authority of 
the Lord Chamberlain, the government had been animated 
by a variety of motives, by no means all of which were 
connected with a desire to improve the moral state of the 
stage; but in the case of Anne at least, the wish to exercise 
a moral censorship was strong. The passage of the Licens- 
ing Act in 1737 ends the struggle but falls without our 
period, and has, besides, been treated fully by other 
writers.? It is sufficient here to point out that though it 
was partly political in purpose it was nevertheless passed 
under the guise of a moral measure, and that when 
Sir John Barnard brought in the bill he made a consider- 
able point of the mischief which had been done in the 
City of London by the theaters, which had corrupted the 
youth and encouraged vice.* Accordingly the bill may be 


1 Public Records Office. L. C. 5-157. 

2 See Watson Nicholson. The Struggle for a Free Stage in 
London and Cross, The History of Henry Fielding. 

3 Cobbett. The Parliamentary History of England. 


REFORMATION OF MANNERS AND THE STAGE 191 


regarded as, to some extent, one of the results of ‘the 
government’s interest in the movement against the stage 
which we have been considering. It is also, in one sense, 
the end of the story. From that time on the morals of 
the theater were under the control of the government cen- 
sor, a person whose decisions have so often aroused feelings 
of anger or amusement according to the temper of the 
observer. 

The two preceding chapters demonstrated the wide- 
spread interest in the question of the theoretical relation 
between drama and morality, and the rather heterogeneous 
collection of facts in the present one illustrates how this 
interest translated itself into a number of attempts to 
regulate the stage practically or to suppress it entirely. 
These practical attempts, like the theoretical discussion, 
had their beginning before Collier’s book, for the earliest 
order of the Lord Chamberlain and the earliest expression 
of hostility on the part of the Society for the Reformation 
of Manners came before 1698. But as in the case of the 
theoretical discussion, development proceeded much more 
rapidly after the appearance of the ‘‘ Short View.” 

The following chapter will discuss the change which 
took place in the drama itself. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY comedy is by no means merely 


Restoration .comedy.purified. True, to the-moralist-it-is 
much less objectionable, and his protest helped its develop- 
, ment, but it is not merely the old comedy_expurgated. It 
is a different species. It embodies the reforms that were 
demanded, for in its fully developed form the language.is 
pure, the moral not only good but obvious,.and the hero 
always intended to be ultimately admired. But in addi- 
tion to this, it adds the element called Sentimentalism, 
which I take to be merely facile and, usually, shallow, 
illegical emotion. 

The best of the old writers of comedy were largely intel- 


lectual. They observed a hard and unfeeling society and 


they pictured it with delight, taking a cynical and purely 
intellectual pleasure in contemplating its follies and its 
vices. To this cold picture, the inferior dramatist added 
a large amount and the better ones a small amount of the 
purely luscious to tickle the imagination of the ground- 
lings. But the emotions, except sometimes the misan- 
thropic, were usually absent. With the coming of the 
sentimental drama, comedy began to take on some of the 
functions of tragedy. |The audience is expected now not 
only to laugh at the characters, but to share their joys 
and sorrows. It is no longer to look on with an Olympian 
detachment, but to suffer with distressed virtue and rejoice 
when the dark clouds reveal their silver lining. 7 Moreover, 
all of.thisis’to be connected with°assentimental (i.e., not 
192 


: 
’ 
| 
a 
7 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 193 


necessarily genuine or deep rooted) admiration of virtue. 
The spectator is to be always on the side of the angels, 
and not only to believe that. virtue always. triumphs. but 
also to feel a personal exultation when it.does. Benevo- 
lence takes the place of esprit as the most admirable human 
characteristic, and the reform of some vicious person be- 
comes a favorite theme. sa FR 

The. attitude.toward love undergoes a change. In the 
Restoration plays there is no hint that it possesses a 
“seraphic part.” At best, love is merely gallantry, a// 
game rather than an experience. The mystical elements 
never appear, and in a word love is Ovidian rather than 
Dantesque. As sentimental comedy develops, the romantic 
elements enter and the lover begins to languish. Face to 
face with his mistress he ceases to banter and begins to 
exclaim. Rapture becomes la mode. 

In the plays of Wycherley or Etherege sentiment as 
well as sentimentality is absent. People seldom sigh. 
Though they may, as a matter of convention, talk of 
flames and darts, it is merely a convention. When the 
hero is about to marry he does not tell his mistress that 
they are twin halves of the same soul, or that he cannot 
live without her. He merely admits that he is hard-up 
and a bit tired of many mistresses, and that, as he thinks 
her an attractive woman, he believes he would rather settle 
down with her than with anyone else whom he knows. 
The heroine accepts in the same spirit. He is a hand- 
some and vigorous young fellow. All the world admires 
him, and if he will promise not to restrain her liberty, she 
will have him. | } | 

In the early years of the eighteenth century, however, 
the characters come more and more to speak of love with 
a eapital “ L,” even though the old machinery of amorous 
intrigue is kept up. Not the amour, but married love, 


194 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


yeomes to be the ideal; and instead of constantly making 
fun of the etinbatal institution and all connected with 
it, the new dramatists vie with one another in lauding its 
delights. The typical plot runs somewhat after this fash- 
ion: A virtuous person comes in contact with a vicious 
one. The sympathy of the audience goes out to the vir- 
tuous one. Through some series of circumstances, the 
vicious person is convinced of his error and every one is 
made happy, the audience sharing in the joy of the char- 
acters and rejoicing that another member has been added 
to its party —i.e., the believers in virtue. 

It is evident that a play of this type satisfies the more 
/ moderate requirements of the critics of the Restoration 


Bae be It is, in the first place, purged to a very consider-. 


‘able extent of those things which might be objected to 
‘merely on the ground of delicacy and good taste. More- 
“over, it aims to present conventional virtue in an attractive 
blight, to convey the impression that uprightness is re- 

warded, that repentance brings happiness and reconcilia- 
tion, and that the ideal gentleman is not a selfish rake 
but a kind and even soft-hearted philanthropist. That 


it did not succeed very well in doing all these things will 


be clear; but it is equally clear that it. had the ostensible 
aim of doing so, and that this aim is the one which critics 
had maintained comedy should pursue. Consequently we 
must assume, either that the criticism and denunciation 
had some effect on actual drama, or that both the criticism 
and the new drama were the result of the same general 
movement, though one did not influence the other. 

To make the sweeping statement that the Collier con- 
troversy had no effect. on. the drama. seems. to me. to.be 
almost as.wrong as:tosay that it actually-produced senti- 
mental comedy. There was a general movement. toward 


“A 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 195 


reform, but the Collier controversy called attention di- 
rectly Sy stage as flagrantly out. of key with such a 
movement, and the stage was modified. 

To estimate how closely the attack of Collier and the 
general moral movement were connected with the develop- 


_ment of the new comedy, it will be necessary not only to 


know what this comedy was like and when it was born, 
but also when it began to win for itself a recognized 


place on the stage and when, also, it came to dominate. 


To say that Steele in 1722 wrote a very moral play which 
was very successful tells a great deal, but it does not tell 
all. What we need to know also is, when. and by what 
steps the audience began to expect that sort of thing and 
to consider Restoration comedy as a style which had been 
outgrown. This chapter will suggest a scheme which may 
enable us to watch the development. of the new type and 
its gradual displacement of the old. 

Misapprehension is likely to result from a partial survey 
of theatrical conditions at this time. If one reads only 
the plays of Farquhar, Gay, and Fielding, and, moreover, 
observes that the old plays continue to make up the bulk 
of the bills in the early years of the eighteenth century, 
he will be inclined to believe that theatrical conditions 
were not undergoing any very rapid change. On the other 
hand, if he will read all the new plays being produced 
at any given period in that time, and compare them with 
all the plays produced in an equal length of time during 
the eighties of the seventeenth century, he will perceive at 
once that they are characterized by different complexions. 

It is obviously impracticable to mention and discuss all 
the plays from 1660 to 1725, but on the other hand to 
select certain plays or certain authors is likely to be mis- 
leading. Nor will it do to select only the most successful 


AOS 


196 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


plays, for undoubtedly the Restoration dramatists and 
those of their school were the abler playwrights, while 
many failures or partial successes show definitely the 


drift of dramatic experiment. The ideal method would be 


to examine all the comedies (with the exception of mere 


| revisions and pure farces) of, say, the years 1685, 1696, 


- 1700, 1705, 1710, 1715, 1720, 1725, and thus secure a prac- 


' ticable means of comparing the dramatic complexion. of the 
| English stage at different times over this critical period. 


' The only deviation from this perfect symmetry which con- 


ditions will necessitate is caused by the fact that the bulk 
of dramatic writing was never very great, and varied con- 
siderably. Consequently we shall have to stretch the year 
a little. Thus 1685-1689 will represent the typical product 
of the earlier period,_1696. that of about the time when the 


| appearance.of sentimentalism began to be recognized, while 


‘ the years 1704-5 and 1705-6 will represent conditions about 


the year 1705, etc. However, since we take all the new 


comedies in each period the comparison will be fair. 
Genest will furnish the canon. 

The years 1685-6-7-8-9 will yield us nine comedies 
which show how little variation there was in general tone. 
None is by a dramatist of the first rank, but four, Crown’s 
“Sir Courtly Nice,’ Sedley’s “ Bellamira,” and Shad- 
well’s “The Squire of Alsatia” and “Bury Fair,” are 
capital comedies. Two, Mrs. Behn’s wretched farce, “ The 
Emperor of the Moon,” and a low comedy, ‘“‘ The Devil of 
a Wife,” are not worth mentioning except to say that they 
offer nothing to contradict what will be said of the others. 
Shadwell may be passed with no other comment than that 
given in an earlier chapter. 

“Sir Courtly Nice” is a very light-hearted, very loose, 
very “smutty” (to use Collier’s favorite word), and very 
amusing comedy. As often happens, the character who 


‘ 
; 
{ 
Hi, 
; 
; 
f 
. 
’ 
; 
4 
x 
; 
: 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 197 


gives his name to the piece is not the hero. Leonora is in 
love with Farewel, whom her father refuses because of 
an old family feud. He wishes to marry her to the fop, 
and when she asks why he has chosen a fool, he replies 
“Because none but fools will marry.” Farewel employs 
a go-between, remarking: 


'“ Pimps manage the great business o’ the nation. 
. That is, the heavenly work o’ propagation.” 


Of course the lovers are successful in outwitting the 
parents, but they are hardly the sort of lovers whom all 
the world loves, for as always in Restoration plays, the 
love has very little of the seraphic part. There is no 
reason to suppose that the hero differs very much in his 
ideas from the other speaker in the following dialogue: 

“Fa(rewel): Have you no love for women? 

Sur(ly): I ha’ lust. 

Fa: No love? 

Sur: That’s the same thing. The word love is a figleaf 
to cover the naked sense, a fashion brought up by 
Eve, the mother of jilts: she cuckolded her husband 
with the serpent, then pretended to modesty, and fell 
a making plackets presently.” 

In “ Bellamira,”’ Sedley leaned heavily upon Terence 
and redeemed his reputation as a wit, which he had lost 
with “The Mulberry Garden.” One cannot pass this 
comedy by with a simple condemnation of its indecency, and 
what is worse, its callousness, for a passage like the follow- 
ing could not be better dramatically and makes one forget 
all else. The contrast between the phlegmatic Merryman 
and the tempestuous Lionel, whom he overtakes on the 
street, is excellent. 

Lionel: I am undone! Ruin’d! I have lost the sight 

of this pretty creature, and shall never find her any 


198 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


more! Which way shall I go? Whom shall I inquire 
of? What shall I do, to have a glimpse of her? I 
have only this comfort, where-e’re she is, she is too 
beautiful to be long conceal’d. 

Merry (man): Lost! Undone! Beautiful! I am sure 
I heard those words plain: He is in love, and after 
the manner of that sort of mad men is talking to 
himself of his mistress; if he be we shall have fine 
work; — he’ll commit rape, burglaries, fire houses, or 
anything, but he’ll have her; and for money, he’ll 
throw it away like dirt. I pity his father — What’s 
the matter? You look as if you were drunk. 

Lionel: I am worse; I am mad; I am anything; I am 
in love. 

* % * %* * % * * 

Merry: Her age? 

Lion: Seventeen. 

Merry: I have drunk excellent Hockamore of that age. 

Lion: Damn thy dull Hockamore and thy base jaded 
palate that affects it; could I but get this divine 
creature into my hands, by fraud, force, price, prayer, 
anyway so that I enjoy her, I care not. | 

Merry. Who is she? She may be a person of quality, 
and you may bring an old house upon your head. 

Lion. ’Tis but a duel or two that way; and if her 
relatives be numerous, we'll fight six to six, and make 
an end on’. 

Merry. What country woman is she? 

Lion. I know not. 

Merry. Where does she live? 

Lion. I can’t tell. 

Merry. We are upon a very cold scent. Where did 
you see her? 

Lion. In the streets; with a servant behind her. 


- * 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 199 


Merry. How came you to lose her? 

Lion. That’s it, I was cursing at, as I met you; nor 
do I think there is a man whom all the stars conspire 
against like me. What crime have I committed to 
be thus plagu’d? 

Merry. ‘The stars are pretty twinkling rogues, that light 
us home, when we are drunk sometimes; but never 
care for you, nor me, nor any man.” 

Keepwell is at the mercy of his extravagant mistress 
Bellamira, who frequently deceives him. A _ suitor pre- 
sents her with an orphan for a maid and a eunuch for 
a page. Lionel, who is in love with Isabella (the maid), 
disguises himself as a eunuch and manages to rape her. 
It is discovered that she is a long-lost sister of another 
of the characters. The latter demands revenge, and Lionel 
agrees to marry her. Most of the remainder of the plot is 
concerned with the intrigue by which Keepwell’s friends 
enjoy his mistress, to whom he is passionately attached. 
There is no limit to the frankness of the dialogue, and the 
moral standard of the characters may be judged by the 
lines spoken by Merryman when he is about to make a 
temporary theft of his friend’s mistress. ‘‘ Well, I am a 
rogue, to betray my friends thus; but, who’d not be taken 
off with such a bribe? Besides, in the matter of women, 
we are all in the state of nature, every man is hard against 
every man, whatever we pretend or argue.” Another bit 
of dialogue may be given. 

Cunningham: He wou’d give me now and then five 
guineas for a song for her, which I let her know was 
mine; when I saw her next, we laugh’t at the poor 
fool together — you know he is but a dull silly fellow. 

Merryman: And therefore you may very honestly pre- 
tend friendship, borrow his money and lie with his 
mistress. 


200 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Cunningham: A pious citizen that goes to church twice 
a day, will play the knave in a bargain; a lawyer 
take your fee, and for a good sum of money, be absent 
when your cause is tri’d; a parson marry you to a 
great fortune without a license; we are all rogues in 
our way, and I confess woman is my weak side. 

This, the Restoration dramatist might say, was satire 
against the folly of “keeping.” Yes, satire against the 
silly dunce, but almost admiration for the false friends 
who treacherously take advantage of his confidence and 
laugh at him behind his back. This is satire, but satire 
which offers no moral excuse for itself. It satirizes a 
‘weakness and defends a meanness. To object that the 
characters do not receive poetic justice would be childish; 
in fact, to object to anything about Restoration Comedy 
on moral grounds is childish; but to defend it as satire 
is doubly so. 

Of the two plays which remain to us in this group, 
neither is so brilliant as the two just discussed, but both 
illustrate equally well the moral depravity of the atmos- 
phere. In her exuberant and light-hearted way, Mrs. Behn 
committed most of the sins of which Restoration Comedy 
can be legitimately accused, but in “ The Lucky Chance, or 
an Alderman’s Bargain,” the only one of her plays which 
is included in the present group, she is guilty chiefly of 
lengthy and elaborate lusciousness, the principal scenes 
occurring in bed rooms, and the characters being perpetu- 
ally either disrobed or disrobing. It appears that the 
indecency of the play had aroused some criticism as com- 
ing from a woman, for in the interesting preface Mrs. 
Behn maintains her right to be as lewd as her male rivals 
in the drama, begging the privilege of her “ masculine 
part, the poet, to tread in the same paths my predecessors 
have so long thriv’d in,” and challenging any unbiassed 
person who does not know the author, to read the play 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 201 


and compare it with other comedies of the age, “ and if 
they find one word that can offend the chastest ear, 
I will submit to all their peevish cavills.” Still Genest, 
the most unsqueamish of clergymen, finds it unusually 
indecent. 

The gallant hero, Gayman, is in love with Julia, the 
wife of an old alderman. Gayman leads the latter on to 
gamble until he stakes a night with his wife against 
money, and loses. Gayman goes to collect his winnings, 
and she promises to leave the alderman forever. Like all 
of Mrs. Behn’s plays, this one is not repulsive because of 
the very frankness and lack of pretense. The premise 
is that, for the man at least, love knows no law, and that 
love is purely animal. The closing couplet is typical. The 
alderman and his friend, both of whom have lost their 
wives to younger men, console themselves thus: 


“That warrior needs must to his rival yield, 
Who comes with blunted weapons to the field.” 


“The Fortune Hunters: or Two Fools Well Met,” by 
James Carlile, is an excellent example of the type of 
comedy especially denounced by the Reformers, in which 
a heartless libertine is rewarded in the end with the hand 
of a somewhat over-amorous heroine, upon whose fortune 
he has all along had his eye. Young Wealthy has been 
disinherited for having stolen a large sum of money from 
his father. In town he meets his elder brother: 

Elder Wealthy: But why have you not ask’d how my 
father does? What brought us to town, or where you 
might see us. 

Young Wealthy: Why first, I suppos’d he was well, 
or dead or alive, there is nothing to be got by him. 
Next, I suppose you came to town for the same reason 
I stay in town, to whore and drink. Lastly, I thought 
I might meet you in a bawdy-house. 


202 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


This promising young man rivals the hero of Sir Fopling 
Flutter in the multiplicity of his simultaneous intrigues. 
He is supported by a rich widow, is also engaged in the 
traditional sport of an amour with a tradesman’s wife and, 
finally, at his brother’s suggestion, undertakes to woo 
Marie, the possessor of ten thousand pounds. She, on her 
part, has confessed that “the first young gentleman that 
I like, (if he have good manners enough to like me) shall 
have the spending of this ten thousand pounds of mine, 
rather than I’ll die of the pip, to leave it to you and your 
heirs.” Set in pursuit of her, Young Wealthy does not 
give up either the widow or the tradesman’s wife, for 
“Tis not like a wise man to leave off one trade, without 
a certainty of living better by another.” He deceives the 
widow to the last and plays a cruel joke on his father, but 
when, having won Marie, he says “ We will forsake this 
hole of sin and sea coal, and make you merry in a better 
air. Come, spouse. Your blessing, sir,” his father for- 
gives him, saying: ‘“ Pox take him, he talks as if he had 
some grace; he made a long speech too without swearing.” 

This rapid survey of comedy during the years 1685-9 
confirms what has been said in general about Restoration 
Comedy. The wild gallant treads a flowery path to for- 
tune, without the slightest regard not merely for decency 
but even for fairness, consideration of the rights of others, 
or the most rudimentary sense ‘of honor. 

I leap now to the year 1696, which alone yields us 
thirteen new comedies,’ because that year includes Cibber’s 
“TLove’s Last. Shift,”..which may be correetly~ealled~the 
first sentimental comedy, since it was the first, play..to..be 
recognized by contemporaries as such. Any author might 
from time to time drop in expressions which were not 
completely in the Restoration tradition, but no previous 

1 [ have not been able to find She Ventures and He Wins men- 
tioned by Genest. 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 203 


play had struck the audience as establishing a new type.' 
Cibber, then a young and not very well known actor, 
took a conventional plot but gave it a new emphasis, call- 
ing upon the audience to delight in the triumph of the 
virtuous wife and presenting for their approval.a.ridicu- 
lous masque in praise of marriage. The importance of\ 
the play is purely historic. It is only an experiment and | 
intrinsically a very bad one at that. The plot concerns 
one Loveless, a thoroughly abandoned libertine who has 
deserted his wife so long ago as to have forgotten her 
completely. She wins him back, not only to love for her 
but also to enthusiasm for the marriage state in general, 
by becoming his mistress when she discovers that he does 
not recognize her as his wife. From every point of view 
the play is objectionable. Three-fourths of the dialogue 
is as lewd as that of any Restoration play, and the virtu- 
ous conclusion reeks with hypocrisy. It is hard to believe 
that it was ever taken seriously, but it had a tremendous 
success which the author himself? attributed to the “ mere 
moral delight received from its fable.” 

From now on Cibber was considered, and. considered 
himself, as one of the reformers of the stage. The fol- 
lowing dialogue* will illustrate what his contemporaries 
thought of his experiment: 

Ramble: Ay, marry, that play was the philosopher’s 

stone: I think it did wonders. 

Sullen: It did so, and very deservedly; there being 

few comedies that come up to’t for purity of plot, 
manners and moral.” 


1 Mr. Allardyce Nicoll in his recently published “ A History of 
Restoration Drama, 1660-1700 (1923) thinks that he can see ad- 
umbrations of sentimentalism in certain comedies produced from 
1680 on. 

2 Apology. 

8 Gildon. Comparison between the Two Stages. 


204. ~ COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Davies! says roundly: ‘“ To a player we are indebted for 
the reformation of the stage. The first comedy, acted 
since the Restoration, in which were preserved purity of 
manners and decency of language, with a due respect to 

the honor ofthe. marriage-bed, was. Colley ..Cibber’s 
‘Love’s Last Shift.’” And again he tells us that “ The 
joy of unexpected reconcilement, from Loveless’ remorse 
and penitence, spread such an uncommon rapture of pleas- 
ure in the audience, that never were spectators more happy 
in easing their minds by uncommon and repeated plaudits. 
The honest tears, shed by the audience at this interview, 
conveyed a strong reproach to our licentious poets, and 
“was to Cibber the highest mark of honor.” 

Cibber had evidently been somewhat doubtful as to the 
success of his attempt, for he had a comic and indecent 
prologue in which he made fun of the whole thing. His 
fears, however, were groundless. From what Gildon wrote, 
it is obvious that the cause of the success lay in the new 

_ element, and hence also obvious that if an audience could 
| really be moved to tears by “ Love’s Last Shift” it was 
thirsting for sentiment. Collier had not yet spoken, but 
from the success of Cibber’s play it is almost certain that, 
‘without Collier, sentimental comedy with its praise of 
‘virtue was inevitable. Cibber profited by the lesson of 
his success, and henceforth shares with Steele the posi- 
tion of premier sentimentalist. He did not, however, 
like the latter, take a very prominent part in the critical 
advocacy of the new comedy, though he does so to some 
extent in his prefaces, and, in the “Apology ” (1740), 
published after his retirement from the stage, he appears 
everywhere as an exponent of the moral theory of the dra- 
matic function. Here he expresses amazement “ that our 
best authors of that time could think the wit and spirit 


1 Dramatic Miscellany. 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 205 


of their scenes could be an excuse for making the looseness 
of them public ” and proclaims himself content if his read- 
ers will give him no other merit than that of having the 
“interest and honor of virtue always in view.” 

Looking at the other comedies of 1696, we find that 
Cibber was not entirely alone, for there are here and 
there indications of an inclination to break away from the 
old tradition, though this inclination is nowhere -suffi- 
ciently marked to attract attention, or to rob Cibber of 
credit for the perspicacity which led him to invent a new 
type of comedy surely predestined to great popularity. 
“The Younger Brother” by ‘the late Mrs. Behn,” ‘ The 
Mock Marriage” by Thomas Scott, ““ The Spanish Wives ” 
by Mrs. Pix, “ The Country Wake” by the actor Thomas 
Doggett, and “The Husband his own Cuckold” are pretty 
well in the old traditions. The latter play, by John 
Dryden, Jr., offers opportunity for reflection. In it, Sir 
John Crossit discovers that his wife has made an amorous 
appointment with a foolish physician. The husband keeps 
the appointment in the dark, and leaves scratches on his 
wife’s face. Angered at the supposed outrage of the physi- 
cian, she turns upon him the next day and has him driven 
from the house. Here we have, if you like, poetic justice 
neatly administered, but there is no sentiment whatever. 
Had the play been written in 1726 it might have proceeded 
thus, but in the end the husband would have explained his 
ruse, the wife would have fallen into repentance, promises 
would have been given that no indiscretion should be com-: 
mitted in the future, and the curtain would have fallen 
upon a scene of reconciliation and tears. 

Motteux’s flat comedy “ Love is a Jest” is neither centil 
mental nor ingeniously immoral. It hardly makes evidence 
one way or the other, except that there is at least no striv- 
ing after immorality such as one is accustomed to find in 


206 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


the typical Restoration plays. In the anonymous “The 
Cornish Comedy ” the hero is not particularly scrupulous 
in his methods, but his love for the heroine is more or 
less genuine. Neither he nor she indulges in the usual 
epigrams of inverted morality, and the former actually 
expresses some scruples of honor. Lord Lansdowne’s “ The 
She Gallants”’ had a rather romantic plot of a deserted 
heroine who wins back the affections of the hero, and 
though loose enough in language and incidents had one 
distinctly sentimental scene where the repentant hero 
breaks out: ‘‘ Oh, raise not my confusion with reproaches, 
so tender and so just: Alas! If you could look into my 
breast, you would find yourself, if it be possible, enough 
reveng’d by the shame and remorse that overwhelms me, 
(Kneeling.) Thus prostrate, the vilest criminals have 
leave, — to approach the heavens they have offended, etc. 
ete.” There has been no preparation for this, the hero has 
hitherto shown himself the most confirmed of libertines, 
but this speech is definitely a foreshadowing of the sort 
of thing that was to become very common. One of Con- 
greve’s heroes could hardly have spoken it. 


Dilke’s “ The Lover’s Luck” is the story of a soldier 


rather than of a wild gallant, and his heroes show some 
faint shadow of honor. The whole play is at times coarse 
and always dull, but not particularly immoral, while Mrs. 
Manley’s “The Lost Lover” shows some distinct traces 
of sentimentality. The hero is a complete cad (which is 
not unusual even in sentimental comedy), but he tends to 
be a moralizing rather than a cynical one, indulging in 
some heroics and exclaiming; “‘ Oh, the curse of lewdness! 
What woman’s fair after we find her faulty ”—a com- 
pletely non-Ovidian and hence non-Restoration idea. He 
is half-way to becoming a Joseph Surface, a typical prod- 
uct of the eighteenth century, when the libertine had 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 207 


abandoned cynicism and taken to hypocrisy. D/’Urfey’s 
unimportant and unexceptionable “ Don Quixote Part III ” 
has already been mentioned. 

Though “ Love’s Last Shift” is the only really striking 
phenomenon of this year, it seems that bits of sentimental- 
ism, or, if you prefer, bits of ordinary human feeling, are 
creeping in here and there, though the movement was 
not self-conscious before Cibber’s play appeared. It seems, 
too, that even where sentiment is absent the authors strain 
ery after. cynicism. and perverted morality, so that the 
spirit. ‘of Restoration Comedy seems more or less on the 
point of dissolution: “It must be borne in mind; however, 
that such judgments as this should be made with some 
caution and accepted with more. Beljame, for instance, 
thinks that “The Way. of the.World.”.shows that Con- 
greve was moderating his tone in answer to the moralist, 
while Whibley? takes the same play as the best possible 
proof that the dramatists cared not a rap for Collier. 
Still I think that the dramatic production of 1696 does 
show some tendency to moderate the persistent and cynical 
lewdness of the typical Restoration plays, and that this 
fact, since Collier’s book did not appear until 1698, is 
significant. 

The nine comedies furnished by the years 1700 and 1701 
again show the new and old traits in conflict. The domina- 
tion of the old school is shown by the fact that illegitimate 
amorous intrigue still plays an important part; and that 
whether or. not the intrigue is frustrated, the wife’s virtue 
saved, and the wild gallant landed safely in the bonds of 
matrimony, often depends rather on chance or policy than 
on the principles of morality. ~ 
This latter fact is indeed one of the things which sepa- 
rates Restoration from Sentimental comedy. In the 

1 Cam. Hist., Vol. VIII, Chap. VI. 


be 


> 


V 


208 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


former, the hero often enough commits matrimony and 
the erring wife is often enough erring only in intention, 
but the happy conclusions are brought about through the 
influence of chance or the direction of prudence rather. than 
through the “workings of moral scruples, and the. interest 
is centéréd’on’ the” intrigue rather than. on. the. ‘conclusion. 
In the Sentimental Comedy,.on..the other, hand, ‘the charac- 
ters are always being overtaken. by..remorse..or. prevented 
by scruples.. Two contrasting plays will illustrate the 
point. For an illustration of the old school take “The 
Reform’d Wife” (1700) by Burnaby, which belongs to the 
years now under discussion. The epilogue may be noticed 
as illustrating the fact that it had become increasingly 
necessary to pretend, at least, to morality. 


“Let none hereafter plays ungodly call, 
For this was writ to mortify you all. 
No parson ’s here expos’d, no brothel storm’d 
But a kind handsome keeping wife reform’d.” 


These lines show the need felt to recognize the moral 
movement, but if the play was “ writ to mortify you all” 
then the author proceeded in a strange way. Astrea dis- 
likes her husband, and keeps him at a distance by pre- 
tending to dislike all men. She meets Freeman and begins 
an intrigue with him, he not knowing that she is the wife 
of an old acquaintance, Sir Solomon Empty. The lovers 
agree to meet at the house of Clarinda, but she falls in 
love with Freeman herself, and he concludes that though 
he likes Astrea better, he had rather marry Clarinda’s 
fortune than remain Astrea’s poor lover. Unwittingly he 
discovers to Sir Solomon his rendezvous with the latter’s 
wife. But by Sir Solomon’s excitement he suspects the 
truth and tells Astrea. They plan that when they meet 
she will pretend that there has been a mistake and that 


Se en a ae oe 


ee 


ee a 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 209 


she had never encouraged him. Sir Solomon, in hiding, is 
taken in by this acted meeting, is convinced of his wife’s 
chastity, and Clarinda and Freeman announce their en- 
gagement. It is perfectly evident that the wife’s “ re- 
form” is merely by necessity, and that the “lesson” of 
the play, if we must seek it, is prudential rather than 
moral. 

This amoral treatment of the subject may be well con- 
trasted with the treatment of a triangular or rather 
quadrangular plot in a fully developed sentimental play 
like “A Wife to be Let” (1723), by the novelist Mrs. 
Haywood. The prologue expounds that mixture of senti- 
ment and caution which the eighteenth century called 
virtuous love: 


“Learn, from the opening scene, ye blooming fair, 
Rightly to know your worth, and watch with care; 
When a fool tempts ye, arm your heart with pride, 
And think the ungenerous born to be deny’d: 
But, to the worthy, and the wise, be kind, 

Their cupid is not, like the vulgar’s blind: 
Justly they weigh your charms and sweetly pay 
Your soft submission, with permitted sway.” 


The epilogue sums up the moral thus: 


“ ... the heroine of our play 
Gains glory by a hard and dangerous way: 
Belov’d, her lover pleads— she fears no spy, 
Her husband favors—and her pulse beats high. 
Warm blows his hope—her wishes catch the fire, 
Mutual their flame, yet virtue quells desire.” 


The beautiful Mrs. Graspall is married to an incredibly 
avaricious husband. Beaumont, who has deserted his wife 
Amadea, makes love to Mrs. Graspall. She loves him but 
will “still hold my honor dearer than my life.” Graspall 
finally offers to sell his wife to Beaumont, who seems to 


210 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


accept. She rebukes the lover and he protests that he had 
no intention of enforcing his bargain. “ The flame I feel 
for you, is in itself so pure, I grieve it shou’d appear in 
any likeness with those unconstant fires which loose de- 
sires create; I tremble when I approach you and tho’ I’d 
forfeit life to touch that hand, so fearful am I to offend, | 
I dare not ask it.” Now it happens that Amadea, his 
wife, disguised as a man, has followed Beaumont and 
confided in Mrs. Graspall. The latter questions Beau- 
mont as to former loves. The eighteenth century prig 
speaks: “I do not deny but that I have met temptations 
in my way, which youth and inadvertency, at some un- 
guarded hours, have yielded to.” She presses him fur- 
ther. He: “Oh Amadea! Now thy image rises to my 
view, and brings my broken vows to my remembrance.” 
Of course Amadea is produced and forgiven. Beaumont: 
“Can there be so much generosity in nature! ” Complete 
reconciliation. This, it would seem, should be enough to 
exhaust one’s stock of belief in the powers of virtue, but 
more is to come. The more complete the orgy of redemp- 
tion and reconciliation, the better is the sentimental 
dramatist pleased. Mrs. Graspall pretends to have 
granted the seeming-man Amadea all that she had refused 
to Beaumont. Her husband is distracted, for it is worse 
in retrospect than in anticipation. He wishes he were dead. 
Now he has been punished enough. Behold! Amadea is 
a woman. More raptures. The inconceivable miser be- 
comes yet more inconceivable when we see that he also is 
about to reform. So the play ends, and the audience ex- 
periences what Steele calls that joy which is too deep 
for laughter. Here the wife is kept upon the path of duty, 
not as in “The Reform’d Wife” by prudence and the 
force of circumstances, but purely through Virtue. 
It is useless to comment on the absurdity and unwhole- ° 
| someness of such a play as Mrs. Haywood’s, or to urge 


4 
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a ee ee ee ee ee ee ee 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 211 


that the frank cynicism of the Restoration is perhaps 
truer and consequently more wholésome. We are con- 
cerned merely with pointing out the strangeness of a 
phenomenon. An audience of 1673 liked “ The Country- 
Wife”’ and an audience of 1723 was expected to endure 
“A Wife to Let.” Mrs. Haywood, in accordance with the 
movement of the time, gave the superficial appearance of 
morality and so satisfied the superficial and even, at times, 
hypocritical rage for the moral. 

But it is time to return to the plays of 1700 and 1701 
when sentimentalism was still struggling for expression. 
David Crawford’s “ Courtship a-la-mode” is not senti- 
mental, but at least the “moral points the right way.” 
D’Uriey’s very dull “ The Bath, or, the Western Lass ” 
also shows little sentiment except in the somewhat roman- 
tic treatment of love. John Corye’s “A Cure for Jeal- 
ousy,”’ however, shows many of the marks of sentimental- 
ism in a plot which is quite old-fashioned in places. 
Scrapeall is unjustly jealous of his virtuous young wife 
Arabella, who, though virtuous, roundly tells him of his 
unfitness for a young wife. He gets the idea that she 
means to kill him, and hires an assassin to kill her first. 
The plot is discovered, and he is frightened out of his wits 
and his jealousy by the appearance of a mock corpse. In 
a sub-plot, Colonel Blunt, having been driven into the 
army because his father has refused to support his gay 
life, returns in disguise and tells his father of the death 
of his son. The father is stricken with remorse, and.there 
is a sentimental scene of recognition, reunion, and recon- 
ciliation. The rakish hero, and some of the incidents, 
connect the play with the Restoration tradition, but much 
of the dialogue, by its tendency to serious discussion 
rather than epigrammatic dismissal of ethical questions, 
by its romantic love scenes, and especially by its tear- 
ful-joyful reconciliation motif, is definitely sentimental. 


— 


212 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


Similarly, Manning’s ‘“ The Generous Choice,” though the 
story of a perfect Don Juan, concludes with the hero’s 
reform, and takes much of its point not from cynical 
laughter but again from sentimental scenes of reconcilia- 
tion and reformation, and in the end makes its plea to 
the moralizing taste of the age with the concluding rhymed 
tag: 
“For what-soe’er delight bad men can find 

In doing wrong, ’tis the unblemished mind 

That makes our lives most sweet, 

Our pleasure most refined.” 


Whether or not “The Way of the World” (1700) does, 
as Beljame thinks, show an attempt to give less cause for 
offense to the moralist, I shall not attempt to decide; but 
Burnaby’s “ The Ladies’ Visiting Day” complains in the 
preface: ‘My care to avoid any thing that might shock 
the ladies, I perceive has done me no service.” Probably 
he was sincere. He constructed a rather cynical plot in 
the old style, but no doubt flattered himself that he had 
at least shown more regard to decency and morality than 
audiences were accustomed to find in the plays of Wycher- 
ley, Dryden, and Mrs. Behn. 

Thomas Baker, in the preface to “ The Humor of the 
Age,” makes his contribution to the stage controversy. He 
speaks of those “who bustle mightily for a reformation, 
and would fain atone their own crimes, by suppressing 
the vices of others, which they have no pleasure in their 
taking” ; and continues: “I would not excuse any im- 
morality the stage is guilty of, but when men show so 
much spleen, as to exclaim against a play, without con- 
sidering whether the moral of it be virtuous or vicious but 
’ because it is a play, an author has not justice done him.” 
‘““The Humor of the Age” is not very dramatic. It is 
primarily a series of dialogues discussing and illustrating 


P 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 213 


contemporary manners. The sinister Railton tries to force 
the supposed Quaker Tremilia. Freeman saves her and 
falls in love. He offers to marry her in spite of her lack 
of fortune. Then she tells him: “ Reading and conversa- 
tion taught me the deceitfulness of men, how many pre- 
tended merely for a portion; and that an estate was often 
a greater means to ruin a woman than make her happy. 
I resolv’d therefore to conceal my fortune, and continue 
in this habit, that I might give the world no occasion to 
talk or to inquire after me, and either live single, or not 
to marry till I found a man whose addresses were out of 
pure love.” Nothing is more characteristic of sentimental 
comedy than this sudden discovery that a disinterested 
sacrifice made nobly turns out to be no sacrifice at all. 
Poetic justice demands that noble deeds receive proper 
payment. Virtue is not its own reward. The hero sacri- 
fices material advantages for love, honor, duty or what 
not, but always discovers in the end that a sacrifice has 
not really been made. Hence the undeniable namby-pam- 
byness of sentimental comedy. The moral always seems 
to be that nobleness pays; that the best way to look out 
for yourself is to appear unselfish, and that the plum will 
always drop into your mouth if you appear not to desire 
it. 

The tone of Baker’s satire is gentle rather than misan- 
thropic. Unlike Wycherley, he believed that things could 
be improved; and he tried (though he failed) to attain 
that sophisticated yet uncynical advocacy of virtue which 
made the triumph of the “Spectator.” The epilogue con- 
cludes: 

“We beg the favors by the fair sex giv’n 
With solemn awe as we petition heaven. 
To please. them was the poet’s greatest care, 


He thinks in this play, nothing can appear, 
Rude or obscene to grate the nicest ear.” 


214 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


“The Humor of the Age” is an honest attempt to write 
a moral play, but it will be remembered that one of the 
charges against the actors when they were arrested in- 
cluded obscene speeches from this play. No reasonable 
reform -would satisfy the reformers. As I pronounce the 
conclusion of the epilogue, just quoted, innocent, the shade 
of Collier rises i: me and I seem to hear him speak 
somewhat after the following manner: “ What! Petition 
the fair sex with the solemn awe with which we petition 
heaven! Thus is God defied, and the flesh-pots given 
adoration equal to that due to the divine mystery. Under 
a Christian commonwealth, the lewd poets dare rise to a 
height of profanity that the Pagans never attained, for 
they would not have dared pay to a woman the honor 
due to Jupiter alone.” 

The group of plays now under discussion shows con- 
clusively that in 1700 and 1701 sentimentalism was mak- 
ing considerable progress, but that it was by no means yet 
completely triumphant. The best play which appeared in 
those two years was Farquhar’s “Sir Harry Wildair,” 
which is quite in the old tradition and shows its author 
incapable of treating a romantic scene. In his “A Trip 
to the Jubilee” (1699) to which the former play is a se- 


quel, he had shown the sinister Lady Lurewell joyfully © 


reunited to her husband, but now she relapses into the 
character of an unfeeling flirt to accept a large sum of 
money (which she considers the best love address which 
she has ever received), and is prevented from fulfilling her 
part_of the bargain only by an unexpected interruption. 


_Farquhar indeed remained true to the old tradition. His. 


two most popular plays, “The Recruiting Officer” (1706) 
and “The Beaux’ Stratagem” (1707), though relatively 
clean and in so far products of the reformed age, show him 


| 
| 
. 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 215 


a consistent adherent to the old belief that realism_and 
satire, rather than sentiment and morality, were the busi- 
ness of comedy. As long as he and Vanbrugh continued 
to write successful plays, the triumph of sentimentalism 
could not be called complete. 

On the whole, however, the group of plays just dis- 
cussed is remarkable both for frequent reference to the - 
necessity for reform and for the evidences of continued 
development in the direction of sentimentalism. Even 
where the dramatists were not following the royal road to 

pshetctannet iNerg) T  y 
suecess which Cibber and Steele were pointing out, they 
ustially~avoided the excessive cynicism of Etherege and 
Wycherley. “Between 1696 and this time, the plays of 
Vanbrugh, in ayhich a good measure of the Restoration 
thought was mingled with serious discussions of ethical 
problems and not a little sentiment, had been most suc- 
cessful but had by no means satisfied the reformers. Van- 
brugh was denounced (quite unjustly) as more immoral 
than his predecessors and the continued “ reformation ” of 
the stage went on. 

Of the plays of the years 1704-5, two are really note- 
worthy in the development of sentimental comedy, and all 
the others show some influence from the reform movement, 
though they are not important. John Dennis was too en- 
thusiastic an admirer of the comedies of King Charles’ 
time not to exclude sentiment from his tragi-comedy 
“ Gibraltar,’ but he was also too much a believer in the 
moral end of comedy not to give this one a purpose. 
Motteux, who tried to pass as a reformer of the stage, 
gives us “ Farewell Folly,” a comedy open to little objec- 
tion either in incident or moral, and concludes thus: 


“Long toss’d in youth, that stormy time of life; 
Our safest port is a kind virtuous wife.” 


216 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


A. Chaves’ ‘ The Cares of Love” (1705) is uninteresting 
but clean, while Nicholas Rowe’s comedy ‘“ The Biter ” 
is one of those plays in which the prevailing perversity and 
coarseness of the Restoration has been almost dropped, 
though little sentiment has been added. This brings us 
to the two important plays of the year, Cibber’s “ Careless 
Husband” and Steele’s “ Tender Husband.” 

The great success of both marks an important stage in 


| the struggle of sentimental comedy for triumph. Both 


were conscious attempts to establish a new school. Steele 
had already written two moral plays and declared his set 
purpose to write innocently. In the preface to “ The Care- 
less Husband,” Cibber writes significantly as follows: 
“The best criticks have long and justly complained, that 
the coarseness of most characters in our late comedies, 
have been unfit entertainments for people of quality, 
especially the ladies.” He has waited in vain, he says, for 
some one else to take the lead, but is now resolved to 
strike the first blow himself. Like its predecessor ‘‘ Love’s 
Last Shift,” ‘The Careless Husband” is the story of the 
reform of a rake, but it is an infinitely better play. The 
former was not only nonsense but hypocritical nonsense, 
while the new play was developed with a greater appear- 
ance of sincerity, and the reform made probable by prep- 
aration from the beginning instead of being unconvinc- 
ingly tacked on at the end. Sir Charles Easy carries on 
amours with both his wife’s servant and a certain Lady 
Gravairs. Lady Easy knows this, but hides her knowl- 
edge. Sir Charles is growing weary of the impertinencies 
of his mistress, and one day falls asleep in the servant’s } 
room without his wig. His wife finds him there, and in- 
stead of awakening him, simply covers his ead When 
he wakes, he realizes Ls has happened and that his 
wife is tender in spite of her knowledge of his unfaithful- 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 217 


ness. This realization is the last straw, and he goes to 
seek and find forgiveness from her. 

In Steele’s play the situation is reversed. The tender 
husband interrupts a rendezvous which his wife has with 
a supposed lover whom he has sent to tempt her. A scene 
of repentance and forgiveness supplies material for senti- 
mentalism. Both of these plays were very successful, and 
took their place as favorites in the standard repertory of 
the theater. Since each called attention to itself as de- 


parting from the Restoration tradition, success must be * ‘ 


interpreted as constituting a substantial triumph for 
sentimentalism. 

The seasons of 1709-10 and 1710-11 together yield only 
six new comedies. Settle’s “ City Ramble,” the central idea 
of which is borrowed from “ The Knight of the Burning 
Pestle,’ is innocent though not sentimental. The two 
comedies which Mrs. Centlivre produced during the sea- 
sons under consideration show her to belong half to the new 
school and half tothe old. Her ‘“ Marplot ” (published 1711) 
suggests the old tradition by the way in which the husband 
is saved from adultery more or less against his will, but 
“The Man’s Bewitch’d”’ is much cleaner in tone than the 
Restoration plays and shows definitely the influence of the 
new tradition. The hero seeks matrimony willingly and not 
as a last resort. Illegitimate intrigue (the customary par- 
allel to courtship in Restoration plays) is absent, and Shad- 
well’s description of the type, quoted in a previous chapter, 
- would not apply to this play. The names of her characters 
will serve as well as anything else to show the change in 
tone. In the old comedies one meets constantly Wildish, 
Sparkish, Bellamour, etc. In this play appear Faithful, 
Lovely, and Constant as heroes, and one rubs one’s eyes 
to discover if he has not by chance strayed into ‘“ Pilgrim’s 
Progress.” 


218 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


The three remaining plays of this group are definitely 
and insistently sentimental. Charles Johnson’s “ The Gen- 
erous Husband” links itself closely to the new tradition 
by the importance given to a scene of repentance and 
forgiveness, but the anonymous “ Injur’d Love” is still 
more striking. Thrivemore has returned from a voyage on 
which he was reported dead, to find that his former love 
Charmilla is a widow and about to enter into a marriage 
of convenience with Rashlove, who, believing his wife un- 
faithful, had left her to die on a desert island from which 
she has escaped and followed him disguised as a man. 
Of course Thrivemore wins back Charmilla, and Rash- 
love’s wife proves that his suspicions of her are unfounded. 
At this discovery he breaks out: “ With surprise and joy, 
ecstasy and wonder, my soul as by meeting torrents tost 
leaves me not calm enough to consider whether I dream or 
wake.” 

Charles Shadwell’s “ The Fair Quaker of Deal” won a 
permanent place in the dramatic repertory. It is a typical 
sentimental comedy in that all the bad characters are 
about to receive poetic justice but are reprieved on a 
promise of reform, and in that the last scene consists of 
an orgy of benevolence and happiness. Captain Worthy, 
landing from a voyage to claim his faithful Quaker, Dorcas 
(imagine a Quaker heroine in a Restoration play!), over- 
hears a plot on the part of the foppish Lieutenant Mizen 
to steal her for her money. He concocts a plan and writes 


a false note of encouragement purporting to come from her, ° 


but sends a disguised street-walker to take her place. A 
similar trick is played on another rake. Then Dorcas’ 
sister makes advances to Worthy. Instead of treating her 
as a wild gallant would have done, he says, somewhat in 
the vein of Joseph Surface: “ Madame, I know my own 
unworthiness too well to believe you are in earnest; but 


4 
1 
i 
4 
; 
Wy, 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 219 


were it so, my honor tells me I must not be so base to 
wrong your sister.” In revenge she writes a forged letter 
to Dorcas, saying that Worthy is married to some one else. 
Doreas swoons, but is revived to discover the imposture. 
Now the two rakes enter with their disguised wives. They 
are dismayed on hearing the truth, but Worthy tells them 
he can relieve them if they will provide for the women so 
as to enable them to lead honest lives. The rakes agree 
and say moreover that they will reform themselves also. 
Worthy then tells them that they were married by a bogus 
parson and that the whole scheme was concocted to en- 
compass their reform. It is significant that this play be- 
came one of the most popular of the new pieces, and that 
to it Cibber attributes a considerable share in the financial 
success of the company which played it. By this time 
sentimentalism was well on its way to the domination of the 
English stage. 

Dramatic production during these years was languishing 
in quantity as well as quality. The seasons of 1714-15, 
1715-16, and 1716-17 saw only six new comedies, includ- 
ing the highly indecent “Three Hours after Marriage,” 
which was so promptly and crushingly damned. Needless 
to say, Addison’s ‘‘ The Drummer ” was free from offense. 
It complains: 


“To long has marriage in this tasteless age. 
With ill bred raillery supplied the stage, 


and attempts thus to rebuke a stock scene with the double 
charge of immorality and bad taste, two criteria which 
were coming to be regarded as supreme. Mrs. Davys’ 
“The Northern Heiress” boasts that “it is free from the 
three grand topics on which most of our modern comedies 
are founded, viz: obscenity, faction and a general con- 
tempt of religion.”’ It is indeed, like Christopher Bullock’s 


220 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


“Woman is a Riddle,” innocent enough and certainly dull. 
“The Artful Husband,” attributed to William Taverner, 
achieved success by borrowing from Shirley still another 
story of the wife reformed of her errors; and Charles 
Johnson, with ‘The Country Lasses,” showed that it was 
possible to avoid both the virtues and the vices of Restora- 
tion Comedy and still be mildly amusing without falling 
into the worst excesses of sentimentalism. In this play 
Hartwell and Modely find their horses lamed in the 
country. They mistake two ladies, Flora and Aura, for 
country wenches, and persuade them to find shelter. In 
the manner of the usual wild gallant they make love and 
propose that the girls become their mistresses. Flora pre- 
sents to Hartwell a serious statement of the reasons why 
it would be unwise for her to do so, and he marries her. 
Modely, however, scoffs at him and tries to force Aura. 
In a Restoration Comedy she might have remonstrated, 
but at worst would probably have only called him a gay 
dog, and considered the incident merely as a tribute to her 
attractiveness. Here she slaps his face and calls for help. 
Freeman, a country gentleman, arrives and denounces 
Modely in good round terms. The latter puts up the 
customary excuses of the Restoration hero —it is a custom 
—he loves all women—and so forth and so forth. In- 
stead of applauding this as an expression of liberal phi- 
losophy, and pronouncing Modely a witty and charming 
young man, Freeman tells him: “ You have broke every 
virtue, and yet impudently imagine you are in the char- 
acter of a gentleman,” thus merely reproducing Steele’s 
remark that the famous hero of “Sir Fopling Flutter ”’ 
was considered a type of the gentleman though he broke 
all the laws of gentility. The significant fact is that the 
audience of 1715 was taking pleasure in seeing the con- 
ventional morality upheld, just as the audience in 1685 
had taken pleasure in seeing it scoffed at. 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 221 


To show that by 1725, the upper limit of this study, 
the transformation of comedy was practically complete; 
that in spite of sporadic reversions to type like the “ Beg- 
gar’s Opera,” the plays of Fielding, and the burlesques 
which led to the passing of the licensing Act of 1737, the 
brilliant perversity of the old comedy had almost ceased 
to exist, and that sentimentalism had become the prevail- 
ing spirit, it will only be necessary to glance rapidly at 
the twelve new comedies which appeared during the sea- 
sons 1719-20 to 1725-6 inclusive.* 

Several of the plays of this period, including by far the 
most noteworthy, Steele’s ‘The Conscious Lovers,” reek 
with sentiment, and not one is in the old spirit of cynical 
abandon. The two which come nearest to the Restoration 
spirit are Griffith’s “ Whig and Tory ” (1720), which, with- 
out being particularly indecent, is not sentimental or 
moralizing, and Mrs. Centlivre’s “The Artifice” (1722). 
Mrs. Centlivre is hardly a sentimental dramatist. Her 
personal predilections are for the good old days of Mrs. 
Behn; but she knows that a bit of morality pleases her 
generation, and so she adds a dash of maple sugar to the 
spice, following the old tradition of making a hero a wild 
gallant constantly engaged in dodging husbands and re- 
pulsing mistresses, but satisfying the new taste by taking 
on a moral conclusion. Face to face with a cast-off mis- 
tress, the hero offers her a one-third share in his affections, 
and she refuses. Then with that strange susceptibility to 
conversion which began to manifest itself in rakes about 
the year 1700, he is about to turn honorable when she 
tells him that, anticipating no such conclusion, she has 
just given him poison. The fear of matrimony is allayed 
by the prospect of death, and he agrees to atone for past sins 


1 A Wife to be Let has already been discussed. I have not been 
able to find The Impertinent Lovers mentioned but not seen by 
Genest. 


222 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


by marrying her. Of course the draught turns out not to be 
fatal and the couple are left to live happily ever after, or at 
least as happily as the reader can imagine them to have. 
The prologue calls attention to the noble example proclaim- 
ing: 


“You tender virgins and neglected wives, 
For you, she all her artifice contrives.” 


Richardson was by no means the first to consider marriage 
to a rake a suitable reward for virtue, for the history of 
sentimentalism is full of such artifices. 

Smythe’s ‘The Rival Modes,” Sturme’s “ The Compro- 
mise,” and Odingsell’s ‘‘ The Capricious Lovers ” are com- 
pletely innocent and terribly dull; while Thomas Southern 
boasts (perhaps not wholly justifiably) of his ‘“‘ Money the 
Mistress ” that “ ’tis fram’d on the model of Terence, and 
as comedies ought to be, not to do harm; the characters 
in nature, the manners instructive of youth, and at least 
becoming sixty and six, the age of the writer. I have 
punish’d infidelity in the lover and falseness in the 
friends.” Leigh’s ‘‘ Kensington Gardens” again presents 
the heroine who conceals her fortune in order to be sure 
that she is loved for herself alone; and the concluding tag 
adds another voice to the chorus which was endeavoring to 
drown in a praise of matrimony the cynical views which 
the Restoration wit had expressed of this subject. It runs: 


“Let roving minds, vain empty joys pursue, 
And court loose pleasures only, cause they’re new: 
Let others by vile arts their ends obtain, 
And try by falsehoods their desires to gain: 
Man’s chiefest bliss, this night’s success does prove, 
Is truth, and constancy, and virtuous love.” 


In “The Bath Unmask’d” Odingsell registers a sort of 
general protest against the conventional stage morals of 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 223 


the Restoration which he embodies in the person of Pander, 
while he takes as his hero a very sedate young man in 
whom love has not only ceased to be animal but has grown 
more or less into that “ esteem” of which we hear so much 
in the eighteenth century. ‘ Virtue is the incentive of 
love,’ says he; and when Pander expresses a seventeenth- 
century commonplace thus: ‘Constancy is a crying sin 
against the law of nature, because it tends to monopoly, 
which robs others of that perfection which each has an 
equal right to,” the virtuous hero is content to let who will 
be clever and replies only: “ This is villainous scandal, 
and I’ll not believe it.” In the end he slights his former 
mistress (in the most innocent sense, of course) to marry 
her younger sister because the former has imbibed too 
much esprit from Pander. Yet Congreve was still alive. 

Similarly, Welsted’s “The Dissembled Wanton” pre- 
sents the hero as prig rather than the hero as rake. When 
it is suggested that he appear, for strategic purposes, to 
make love to some one not the object of his affections, he 
replies: ‘Make love to one I have no love for, nor any 
desire to obtain! Will that be honorable, dear Severne? 
I may possibly win the young lady’s affections.” Wishing 
to try the virtue of the object of his heart, he proposes 
an irregular union. And she, planning to escape somehow, 
agrees on the condition that he tell her the truth about a 
rumor which credits him with an amour with another 
woman. Of course the rumor is calumny, but the young 
man, far from being enthralled as a Restoration hero would 
have been with the idea of having his mistress without the 
necessity of submission to the matrimonial yoke, is ap- 
palled by her too great generosity and exclaims: “ Fall’n 
from her bright orb of imnocence, and her great soul 
level’d with vice,” and again: “ Oh, virgin honor! Oh, 
spotless virtue. Have you a real being or do you subsist 


224 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


only in sound?” One wonders what one of Mrs. Behn's 
heroines would have said to such a lover. 

Steele’s “The Conscious Lovers” I have left to the last. 
It assumes a position of primary importance because of 
the extraordinary success which it achieved, and because 
the author evidently intended it to be a telling blow 
against the old comedies. The play is too well known to 
require an elaborate discussion. The hero Bevil, a kind- 
hearted gentleman and romantic lover, is intended to be 
a sort of a model gentleman of the new and reformed 
school; and the prologue, written for a performance of the 
play at the College at Dublin, shows that he was thought 
of as a sort of contrast to the hero of Sir Fopling Flutter, 
the model gentleman of the old school. The plot, taken 
from Terence, involves the familiar situation of the dis- 
covery of a long-lost daughter, and concludes with a scene 
of tender and almost tearful joy such as the sentimentalist 
liked to offer instead of a comic dénouement. Dennis, 
Steele’s inveterate enemy, makes fun of the care which 
the latter took to insure the success of this crowning effort 
and final plea for the new comedy. Advertisements, he 
says,' have been sent to newspapers, saying that in the 
opinion of excellent judges the comedy then in rehearsal 
is the best that ever came upon the English stage; and he 
remarks that “His play has traveled as far as Edinburgh 
northward, and as far as Wales westward, and has been 
read to more persons than will be at the representation of 
it, or vouchsafe to read it, when it is published.” Indeed, 
as early as 1720, Steele had spoken in “ The Theater ”’ of 
‘““a friend of mine who has lately prepared a comedy ac- 
cording to the just laws of the stage,’ and in “ Mist’s 


Weekly Journal” (Nov. 18, 1721) it is noted that “Sir . 


Richard Steele proposes to represent a character upon the 
1A Defense of Sir Fopling Flutter. 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 225 


stage this season that was never seen there yet; his Gentle- 
man has been two years a dressing, and we wish he may 
make a good appearance at last.” ? 

Steele took care that ‘The Conscious Lovers ”’ should be 
understood to be not merely a play but also one more 
protest against the Restoration Comedy; for he prefaced 
it with a discussion in which he declared that its “ chief 
design”? was to be an innocent performance, and boasted 
of its ethical purpose by writing: ‘“ The whole was writ 
for the sake of the scene of the fourth act, where Mr. 
Bevil evades the quarrel with his friends.’”’ Its importance 
as a triumph for sentimentalism was recognized by Dennis, 
who directed pamphlets against it; by Benjamin Victor, 
who befriended it; and by George I, who gave Steele a 
handsome present in recognition of the play’s service in 
contributing to the reform of the stage. Its success was 
immense, as it not only had a long initial run, but became 
a favorite piece in the standard repertory, thus showing 
that popular favor had swung definitely to the sentimental 
drama. It may indeed be taken as marking the final 
victory of the new type. As the survey of comedy from 
1720 to_1725 has shown, sentimentalism now dominated 
the stage. 

The method which we chose to select plays for comment 
has its disadvantages. It has necessitated the mention of 
many pieces of little importance, and the omission of some 
intrinsically good ones by Farquhar, Vanbrugh, and Mrs. 
Centlivre, but it has achieved our immediate purpose in 
demonstrating the steps by which a change came over Eng- 
lish dramatic writing. Emphatically, a marked change 
did take place, beginning just before Collier’s attack on 
the stage, and continuing until it had transformed the pre- 
vailing tradition. Of course it was not abrupt. Congreve 

1G. A. Aitken. Introduction to Mermaid ed. of Steele’s Plays. 


226 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


did not immediately cease to be Congreve, and the old 
school did not immediately cease to have followers, yet 
the change was, as such things go, rather surprisingly rapid. 
As early as 1696 there could be observed some tendency to 
moderate the tone of comedy. The authors were, perhaps, 
not quite so anxious to be indecent, and their heroes were 
probably not quite so hard or so base. Certainly such a 
change is observable shortly after 1696, and it progresses 
until by 1725 indecency was the exception rather than the 
rule, and the rake had ceased to be the model of perfec- 
tion. The new elements of sentiment, emotion, and con- 
scious moralizing had also entered, and gradually became 
more and more prominent until the typical play was more 
likely to be idealistic, moralizing, and lachrymose than 
cynical, perverse, and intellectual. 

It must not be forgotten, however, that though new 
plays had ceased to follow the old tradition, still the old 
ones continued to be popular. The number of new plays 
produced per year was usually not very large, and the 
actors were forced to depend upon a tried repertory to 
which new plays were added as soon as they were shown 
to have an abiding popularity. The new theories con- 
cerning propriety, though they influenced so markedly the 
new dramatic output, did not prevent the continued 
popularity of the best of the old plays. The following 
table will illustrate this fact by showing the number of 
performances of certain popular plays which occurred 
during representative seasons of the first quarter of the 
eighteenth century. From it, it will be seen that while 
such sentimental plays as ‘“ Love’s Last Shift,” “ The 
Tender Husband,” ‘‘The Careless Husband,” and “ The 
Fair Quaker of Deal” established themselves in lasting 


favor, nevertheless such plays as the lascivious ‘“ The | 


Rover” of Mrs. Behn, Crown’s “Sir Courtly Nice” (for 


RE 2S See = se a ee 


Aa eto, Sei 


- 
4 


Careless Husband......... 16* 


et 


. » 
- 


> 


yo 
»——Man of Mode... .*». ater 


S=<lender Husband... -...... 


- Fair Quaker of Deal... 2/4 nf 1 


Plain Dealer... .i¥%.... 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 224 


expressions in which the actors had been arrested), ‘ Sir 
Fopling Flutter” (Steele’s béte noir) as well as other 
typical Restoration plays continued to be popular.* 


SEASON * | 1704-5 |1709-10}1714—15}1719-20) 1724-25 


Number of Performances 
during Season 
(Approximate) 


Amphytrion 20! ). Rah. -. 


3 
6 
fommittee. A/G Mink... . 
Constant Couple.......... 2 


asove for Love... . .d«o07.. 
move In & lub... too aw... 
Love’s Last Shift. 2 ro" 


Old Bachelor. ...Go... .. 


OW We Or OO 


Recruiting Officer......... 
elapse 08. OAR 
Re TORE 
She Would if She Could... 
Sir Courtly Nice. .. 220... 
Squire of Alsatia......... 


NORE UAUNDOWWNOHDAAKRWW 
Nee NRK OWOPRWHReE NOOWH © 
WWNEMORORWWOSOKHRORW 
ye ee ee ee 


DOPWWWW: 


* 


* Indicates Premier Performance. 


1 A complete theatrical record for this period has never been 


published. This table is compiled from a manuscript calendar 


which is almost complete. It was made by Frederick Laterille and 
bequeathed to the British Museum. It is no doubt only approxi- 
mately correct, but it is suggestive. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 


WHILE the controversy over the purely moral aspects of 
the drama was going on, general literary criticism was con- 
tinuing to develop in the different directions indicated in 
a previous chapter, and was constantly increasing in bulk 
and prominence. The great achievements of the period — 
such as Congreve’s discussion of the Pindaric Ode, Addi- 
son’s criticism of Paradise Lost and Chevy Chase, and the 
Shakespearian scholarship of Rowe, Pope, and Theobald 
—are well known, but there was restless critical activity 
in other fields. Spenser was edited, and ballads were 
collected. Translations from the French continued to ap- 
pear, while Dennis, Gildon, and others wrote additional 
heavy treatises. But here once more we are concerned 
only with pointing out the greatly increasing interest in 
literary criticism which reveals itself in the abundance of 
trifling catch-penny publications as well as in those serious 
works which have found a place in literary history. Popu- 
lar literary biography began with a series of last wills and 
testaments satirized by Addison. ‘“ There is,” he says, 
‘““a race of men lately sprung up—-whom one cannot 
reflect upon without indignation as well as contempt. 
They are our Grub-street biographers, who watch for the 
death of a great man like so many undertakers, on pur- 
pose to make a penny of him. He is no sooner laid in his 
grave, but he falls into the hands of an historian; who, to 
swell a volume, ascribes to him works which he never 

1 “The Freeholder” No. 35. April 20, 1716. 
228 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 229 


wrote, and actions which he never performed; celebrates 
virtues which he was never famous for, and excuses faults 
4 which he was never guilty of. They fetch their only au- 
_ thentic records out of Doctors Commons, and when they 
have got a copy of his last Will and Testament, they 
fancy themselves furnished with sufficient materials for 
‘ his history.” These little books deserve Addison’s con- 
tempt, but they illustrate the growing public interest in 
; literature. Pamphlets on individual plays continue to ap- 
i pear, and journalistic criticism takes a more and more 
; prominent part. In the journal “The Freeholder” we 
| have a number of dramatic reviews not differing much in 
% scope or character from the criticisms with which one is 
d familiar today. 

Criticism had established with literature a rapport which 
made the controversy concerning the moral function of 
the stage more rapidly effective. It is not to be under- 
stood, of course, that the drama would not have changed 
without criticism. The change was inevitable, since it > 
was part of a great movement expressing itself everywhere 
life. Still the existence of a rapport between literature 
and a criticism whose fundamental tenets played into the 
ands of the moralist made it possible for the drama to 
respond much more readily to popular demands than would 
otherwise have been possible. Nor is it probable that, 
without criticism, the new drama would have taken just 
the form which it did. As has already been pointed out, 
Restoration Comedy could have been purified without the 
addition of the sentimental element, but this and the other 
distinguishing characteristics of the Sentimental Comedy 
were encouraged by the development, of their theoretical 
basis in criticism. The Elizabethan drama was of spon- 
taneous growth, with no theory behind it. Every feature _ 
of the Sentimental Comedy, on the other hand, was sup- © 


230 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


ported by critical dogmas which developed along with it. 
Perhaps its own essential badness would have condemned — 


it to an early death had not criticism “ proved ” that it was 
good. 

An interesting illustration of the influence of criticism 
on popular taste may be seen in the case of Addison’s 
“Cato,” the success of which has always seemed rather 
strange to modern readers. It is not a good play. Nor 


is it the sort of thing that the English public has ever 


taken to naturally. Its success has been partially ex- 
plained on the basis of its supposed application to the 
politics of the day, but this is not all. It was a success 
,also because it fulfilled the requirements set by the now 
popular criticism for a good tragedy. That it should please 
was secondary. A tragedy, said the critics, must be regu- 
lar, and, above all, must be instructive — must be a sugar- 
coated pill of philosophy. These conditions ‘ Cato” 
fulfilled, and consequently it was incumbent upon the 
public to be pleased. As one writer in discussing this play 
put it,? “the rules and what pleases are never contrary to 
each other.” ‘ Cato,” he adds, is consonant with the rules 
and so if it does not please this is the fault of the spectator 
and not of the piece. At least five separate pamphlets 
were called forth by the play.? 

Dennis, it is true, wrote against it but he never thinks 
of questioning the rules. He attacks “Cato” on the 
grounds that it does not satisfy critical requirements. 

1 Cato Examined. Anon. 1713. 

2 Remarks upon Cato, etc. By Dennis. 1713; A Vindication of 
the English Stage, exemplified in the Cato of Mr. Addison. Anon. 
1713; Cato Examined. Anon. 1713; Mr. Addison turn’d Tory ... 
wherein it is made to appear that the Whigs have misunderstood 
that author in his tragedy ...to which are added, some cursory 


remarks upon the play wtself. Anon. 1713; Observations upon Cato. 
[W. Sewell] 1713. 


rr i = 


| 
) 
| 


. 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 231 


Love should not have been introduced; and, above all, it 
fails because it does not satisfy the requirements of poetic 
justice. It shows Cato a blameless man brought to a 
tragic end, and therefore has an immoral tendency, because 
people should be taught that the virtuous are rewarded. 

All this seems far enough from a modern attitude to- 
wards literature; but it will help to make clear the im- 
portance which critical theory had in moulding popular 
taste of this period. The hack writer George Sewell wrote 
a pamphlet called “A Vindication of the English Stage 
Exemplified in the Cato of Mr. Addison,” in which his 
enthusiasm cannot contain itself within the limits of prose 
and ends with a burst of verse as follows: 


“ Britons, with lessen’d wonder, now behold 
Your former wit, and all your bards of old; 
Jonson out-vi’d in his own way confess, 
And own that Shakespeare’s self now pleases less.” 


An Elizabethan audience would not have been so fooled. 
It would have recognized immediately the lifelessness of 
“Cato” and there would have been an end of it; but to 
the Queen Anne audience it had been demonstrated by 
logic absolute that ‘“‘ Cato” was a good play and there- 
fore must be admired. 

A sufficient number of quotations from prologues, epi- 
logues, prefaces, and dedications was given in the preced- 


ing chapter to illustrate how self-conscious was the 
movement for a reformed drama, and how constantly the \ 


playwrights appealed to their audience to note that the 
play about to be presented or read complied with the new 
ideas of stage morality and hence had a right to favor. 
I wish now to examine the theory of sentimental comedy 
as expounded by its practitioners. 

Cibber, no doubt, was the first to seize the idea of the 


232 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


practical value of sentimentalism, and since ‘“ Love’s Last 
Shift” came before the Collier controversy, it is evident 
that the need which Cibber met could not be directly 
traced to Collier, but that it existed before Cibber and 
Steele made their successful efforts to meet it. Throughout 
his long career Cibber never ceased to preach as well as 
practice the principles of the new drama, and he was con- 
stantly pointing out that his plays were conscious at- 
tempts to meet its demands. He proclaimed that “The 
Careless Husband” was written in answer to “ the best 
criticks,” who “have long and justly complain’d, that 
the coarseness of most characters in our late comedies have 
been unfit entertainments for people of quality, especially 
the ladies.” He adds: “I was long in hopes, that some 
able pen (whose expectation did not hang upon the profits 
of success) wou’d generously attempt to reform the town 
into a better taste, than the world generally allows ’em: 
But nothing of that kind having lately appear’d, that 
wou'd give me an opportunity of being wise at another’s 
expence, I found it impossible any longer to resist the 
secret temptation of my vanity, and so ev’n struck the first 
blow myself.” ‘A play without a just moral,” he says 
elsewhere,t “is a poor and trivial undertaking; and ’tis 
from the success of such pieces, that Mr. Collier was fur- 
nish’d with an advantageous pretense of laying his un- 
merciful axe to the roots of the stage.” Accordingly, 
“The Lady’s Last Stake” has a moral, the evil of gam- 
bling; and the purpose of the play, he declares, is answered 
if one person is reformed. Similarly, “ The Non-Juror” 
is an attempt to remove prejudice and to show “ what 
honest and laudable uses may be made of the theater, 
when its performances keep close to the true purposes 
of its institution”; and as for the “ Provok’d Hus- 
1 Dedication to The Lady’s Last Stake. 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 233 


band,” “the design of this play [is] chiefly to expose, and 
reform the irregularities that, too often break in upon 
the peace and happiness of the married state.” In com- 
pleting Vanbrugh’s posthumous fragment “ The Provok’d 
Husband,” he assures us that Vanbrugh himself had been 
convinced of the error of his former ways, and intended 
this play to be strictly moral—even to go so far as to 
show the erring wife banished from her home. However, 
finding this too severe for comedy, Cibber has fallen back 
upon the device of repentance and reform and given the 
play a happy ending. Of Vanbrugh himself he says: 
“ At length, he own’d, that plays should let you see 
Not only, what you are, but ought to be; 


Tho’ vice was natural, twas never meant 
The stage should shew it, but for punishment.” 


—-) 

\To Steele, however, belongs whatever credit may attach 
to the position of foremost theoretical advocate of the new 
comedy. His exposition encouraged its development, and 
to him we must turn for its most complete apologia. He 
too was perfectly conscious of his purpose and set himself 
definitely to his task. Nor did he regard himself as an 
innovator. He acknowledged his debt to Collier, of whom 
he proclaimed himself “a great admirer,’ * and in the pro- 
logue to the “ Lying Lover ” he recognized the spirit of his 
age and asked for favor: 


If then you find our author treads the stage 
With just regard to a reforming age. 


He wished simply to throw his influence on the side of a 
movement whose existence he recognized.) 

His first play, “ The Funeral,” is harlily a sentimental 
comedy, but in each of the others he proclaims his pre- 
vailing intention. ‘“ The Lying Lover” was an attempt 


1 Mr. Steele’s Apology for Himself and his Writings. 1714. 


234 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


to write comedy ‘ which might be no improper entertain- 
ment in a Christian commonwealth.” In ‘ The Tender 
Husband” he was careful, he says, to avoid everything 
that might look “ill-natured, immoral, or prejudicial to- 
~ ward what the better part of mankind holds sacred and 
honorable; ”’ while as for “ The Conscious Lovers,” “the 
chief design of this was to be an innocent performance.” 
So firmly did he believe that the fundamental function of 
the drama was instruction that he had no objection to a 
.. state censorship even though that censorship were con- 
du.ted from a political standpoint. It ought to be the 
aim of every government, he says, to see that public 
spectacles are agreeable to the law, religion, and manners 
of the country in which they are produced and to take 
care that their teaching is in agreement with the govern- 
ment’s policy. When he petitioned King George for a 
theatrical patent, he based his claim upon his position 
as areformer. ‘ Your petitioner,” he says, “ by writing the 
comedy of ‘The Conscious Lovers,’ has found by experi- 
ence that more regular and virtuous entertainment would 
take place, if he had duration of time in which to estab- 
lish rules and make contracts: accordingly.” + 

There was no doubt as to his fitness for the task which 
he set himself. If the stage was to be ‘“ reformed,” it 
must be through the leadership of some one who had the 
sympathy of the cultured and liberal part of mankind. The 
theater-going public must be met half-way. Collier had 
been an excellent awakener, but his extreme views made 

1 British Museum. Add. Mss. 32, 685. It is to be noted that 
Steele had no conception whatever of the value of that critical 
spirit which is generally supposed to be the chief virtue of modern 
literature. To him, morality, religion, and policy were simple 
things concerning which there could be no legitimate difference of 


opinion, and his idea of a perfect dramatic literature was one 
completely orthodox in all particulars. 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 235 


him useless except as an agitator. Over him Steele had an | 
immense advantage. In the first place, being a wit, a 
dramatist, and a man of letters, Steele belonged to the 
class he was attacking, and was not, like Collier, a com- 
plete outsider and hence at a tremendous disadvantage. 
Secondly, being a man of the world, he could differentiate 
between those things which practically all decent men 
would agree in considering objectionable and those things 
which could offend only fanatics like Collier, Bedford, and 
the rest. Accordingly, when he makes an attack on a play 
he chooses one obviously corrupt like “Sir Fopling 
Flutter,” instead of confusing the issue by exercising in- 
genuity to find offense in doubtful instances. All this was 
necessary. The early eighteenth century was a reforming 
age, but it was also a polished age; and the time was past 
when people were willing to follow the leadership of 
pedantic Puritans of the type of Gosson and Prynne. 
Steele’s generation was opposed to the licentiousness of 
the court of Charles II, but it had no intention of being 
dragged back into fanaticism. Prynne and Gosson could 
cause the theater to be closed, but they could not modify 
the Elizabethan drama. By establishing a rapport be- 
tween esthetics and morality in criticism, Cibber, Steele, 
and others were able to produce a new comedy. 

At least from the time of the performance of “ The 
Lying Lover” to that of ‘The Conscious Lovers,” Steele 
kept up a constant propaganda in favor of the reformed . 
stage by writing plays which illustrated what he demanded 
and by publishing in his periodicals little articles in which 
he praised or blamed current dramatic works in accordance 
with his principles, and unobtrusively laid down and de- 
fended ‘the theoretical basis of sentimental comedy. Quo- 
tations from the ‘“ Spectator” have a double significance. 
They show, on the one hand, how Steele was, in a measure, 


236 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


leading public opinion. On the other hand, since the paper 
was so enormously popular, he must have been, when he 
was not leading, at least giving expression to ideas already 
half formulated in the minds of his readers. Though he 
did not initiate either the moral movement or the idea of 
sentimentality, yet his contemporaries as well as subse- 
quent generations were accustomed to look at him as the 
center of influence. Cibber testifies to his success, saying 
that scarcely a member of the theatrical company had not 
been improved by “The Tatler” and that “many days 
had our house been particularly fill’d by the influence and 
credit of his pen.” * According to Gay,’ he was the first to 
show that ‘“ anything witty could be said in praise of the 
marriage state,” or that ‘‘ devotion or virtue were anywhere 
necessary — to the character of a fine gentleman.” ® 
Steele was not without some opposition. The old com- 
edy had a violent supporter in John Dennis, who came 
into ill-tempered conflict with him; but the greatest mem- 
ber of the old school, Congreve, retired from: dramatic 
writing and remained respected but silent. Congreve was 
a genius and he was not opposed to decency, but he had too 
keen an insight not to be conscious of the absurdities into 
which the new style comedy was drifting, and he was too 
much of an artist not to regret them. He realized that he 
was out of the spirit of the times, and hence he held his 
peace. One wishes that he had written fully what he 
thought, but we must be content with a sentence, which, 
however, reveals much. To Joseph Kealley, Esquire, of 
Dublin, he writes from London on December 9, 1704: 
‘“Cibber has produced a play [no doubt the wonderful 


1 Apology. 

2 Character of Steele. 1729. 

8 See also Steele’s discussion of plays in Town Talk. Nos. 1, 2, 
6 (1714). 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 237 


“Careless Husband ”’], consisting of fine gentlemen and 
fine conversation altogether; which the ridiculous town for 
the most part likes; but there are some that know better.” ? 
Congreve had outlived his age, but he knew how to keep 
silent. : 

It is to the ‘ Discourse upon Comedy in reference to 
the English Stage” (1702), by Farquhar, the last of the 
old school, that we must look for the best exposition of the © 
principles of Restoration Comedy. He finds in his unhappy 
age that poor comedy is attacked on all sides. The scholar 
calls out for decorum and economy, the courtier for wit 
and purity of style, and the citizen for humor and ridicule, 
while the clergy damns the theater for immorality. How- 
ever willing he may be, the unfortunate poet cannot please 
all. If he sets out to write according to the rules, he will 
bore his audience so completely that it will seek other 
amusements among the masks of the pit; and so “ tho’ the 
play be as regular as Aristotle, and modest as Mr. Collier 
cou’d wish, yet it promotes more lewdness in the conse- 
quence, and procures more effectively for intrigue than 
any Rover, Libertine, or old Batchelour whatsoever.” 

Lay aside the rules, he says, and look at the institution 
of comedy. He defines itas.a‘“well-fram’d tale hand- 
somely told, as an agreeable vehicle for counsel and re- 


proof,’ which "seems~conciliating enough to Dennis, Steele» / 


and their like; but let us note his application. He finds that 
Congreve’s “Old Bachelor” has an _ excellent moral. 
“ Fondlewife and his young spouse are no more than the 
eagle and cockle; he wanted teeth to break the shell himself, 
so somebody else run away with the meat —here are pre- 
cepts, admonitions and salutary innuendos for the ordering 
of our lives and conversations couch’d in the allegories 
and allusions.” In other words, says Farquhar, the 
1 Interary Relics. George Monck-Berkley. 


238 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


moral is that if an old man marries a young wife he must 
not be surprised if she is unfaithful to him. Truly this is 
a moral, but not one which would have pleased Steele, 
who would have been more anxious to reprove the moral 
delinquency of the wife. Yet the fable does carry a 
lesson. It does illustrate forcibly a truth. The best 
Restoration comedies, such as those of Wycherley and 
Congreve, do this constantly. They are not moral in the 
sense of striving much to raise the ethical standard, but 
like all good art they give information concerning the 
life which they depict and to that extent are instructive 
in worldly wisdom. But with such instruction Steele was 
not satisfied. Like Collier and the other moralists he 
wanted the drama to teach an ideal. Wycherley and Con- 
greve were wise men. ‘They understood the life of their 
time, they knew a good deal of human nature, and they 
illustrated its principles in the actions of their characters, 
but they made no attempt to improve it. As the author 
of the “ Letter to Mr. Congreve, etc.” points out, the real 
moral of ‘ Love for Love ” is contained in the tag: 


“The miracle today is, that we find 
A lover true: Not that a woman’s kind.” 


This is indeed a pointed truth and hence in one sense a 
genuine moral. Farquhar was making a plea for the recog- 
nition of the value of such worldly instruction. When he 
says that comedy teaches, it is evident that he does not 
mean that it teaches abstract virtue, but merely that it 
teaches prudence or, to put it more broadly, savoir vivre. 

Steele insisted that. literature should inspire a desire for 
ideal excellence, a thing which Restoration Comedy had 
never attempted and which, indeed, Sentimental Comedy, 
as anyone who will read it may see, failed lamentably to 
accomplish. It wished to express an idealism, but it did 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 239 


not succeed in embodying that idealism in any form capa- 
ble of appealing to a sophisticated generation. Two cen- 
turies have agreed that Restoration Comedy could not be 
expected to elevate human nature in any way, but have 
recognized its success within the limits which it proposed 
itself. Sentimental Comedy attempted, perhaps,.a—nobler 
task, but it failed because of an error in method. Anxious 
to recommend virtue, it insisted that virtue be given * 
material success and that, concretely, the honorable young | 
man should infallibly marry an heiress. But in so doing it | 
produced plays which were false. comedy. because they 
were false to life. Neither the old comedy nor the new 
can be said to have taught virtue, the first because it did 
not make virtue attractive, and the second because, not 
content with making virtue attractive, it insisted on mak- 
ing it necessarily successful. Since every one recognized 
the non-sequitur of this relationship which the dramatist 
had established between uprightness and success, no one 
was edified. 

Let us turn now to a consideration of Steele’s theory of 
the drama. 

The most obviously just charge that could be brought 
against Restoration Comedy was that it introduced what 
Collier called “smut.” The Restoration audience liked 
it, and the poorer writers used it as their chief stock in 
trade, while even the best fell back upon it occasionally. 
Collier said that the dramatist used smut “as the old ones 
did machines to relieve a failing invention.” + And Steele 
follows him.? Most writers, he says, have fallen back upon 
it occasionally, and he observes that “it is remarkable 
that the writers of least learning (Mrs. Behn and Mrs. 
Pix) are best skilled in the luscious way.” He himself 


1 Short View. 
2 Spectator, No. 51. 


240 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


wishes first of all to be innocent. In the dedication to 
‘The Tender Husband” he writes to Addison: “I should 
not offer it to you — had I not been careful to avoid every- 
thing that might look ill-natured, immoral, or prejudicial 
to what the better part of mankind holds sacred and honor- 
able.” And he was not averse to revising even his own 
works on the basis of his severe principles. A letter in 
‘Spectator ” 51 calls attention to the following speech from 
“The Funeral ”: 

Campley: Oh, that Harriot! To hold these arms about 
the waist of the beauteous, struggling, and at last 
yielding fair! ”’ 

In the next edition the latter part of the speech was forth- 
with expunged as being too “ luscious.”’ 

The plea of the old dramatists had been that while of 
course they represented vice on the stage, comedy was by 
definition a picture of faulty people, and their characters 
were held up to scorn rather than-admiration. Sometimes 
such a plea was justified, but often, if made, it was obvi- 
ously insincere, for much of the comedy dialogue consists 
in nothing more than a flouting of all the principles of 
conventional morality. Steele, like Collier, felt that smut 
was not permissible under any circumstances, and of course 
he rejected the insincere protestations of the dramatists, 
recognizing that, for all they might say, the perverted in- 
genuity of their characters represented too often the opin- 
ions of themselves and their audience. In “ Spectator ” 525 
he writes: “ Indeed, if I may speak my opinion of a great 
part of the writings which once prevailed among us under 
the notion of humor, they are such as would tempt one to 
think there had been an association among the wits of 
those times to rally legitimacy out of our island,” but as 
for himself, ““I must confess it has been my ambition, in 
the course of my writings, to restore, as well as I was able, 
the proper ideas of things.” 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 241 


The quotations just given represent the opinion of Steele, 
not only upon the subject of smut, but also upon the kin- 
dred subject of the bad man as hero or central character. 
According to him, what one sees on the stage one tends to 
imitate. If the characters talk smut, then the spectators 
will talk smut; and if the central character is immoral, 
then the spectators will tend to be immoral. The defense 
of the old dramatist was the same in both cases. Comedy 
must represent people as they are. Indelicacy is common 
in contemporary life, therefore it must be common on the 
stage. Many prominent men in life are bad, therefore 
many heroes are bad. The dramatist must not be taken to 
approve of all that he shows. The fact that his characters 
talk smut does not mean that he approves of smut, and 
when he makes a bad man a central character he intends 
the picture to be satiric and the audience to avoid the 
faults which are exhibited. | 

Simple natures, however, have a not wholly unfounded 
distrust of satire, which is indeed a dangerous weapon. 
Whatever may be its purpose, it too often, as Dryden said 
of his ‘‘ Limberham,” expresses the vices which it satirizes. 
Steele would have no misunderstanding possible. There 
must be no doubt as to what the dramatist intends. In 
“Spectator ”’ 446 he writes: “ Whatever vices are repre- 
sented upon the stage, they ought to be so marked and 
branded by the poet, as not to appear laudable nor amiable 
in the person who is tainted with them. But if we look into 
the English comedies above mentioned, we would think 
they were formed upon a quite contrary maxim, as if this 
rule, though it held good upon the heathen stage, was not 
to be regarded in Christian theaters.” It is not hard to 
understand Steele’s protest. When the dramatists drew a 
glittering picture of the young rake resplendent in his vices, 
satire was often far from their minds; but to insist, as 
Steele did, that all satire should be perfectly obvious so 


242 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


- that not even a Collier could misunderstand it as he had 
misunderstood Vanbrugh’s picture of the-absurd Lord 
Foppington, is to rob satire of its effectiveness; and so 
while Steele’s requirements might make for morality, they 
could hardly make for subtlety, and as a matter of fact the 
typical Sentimental Comedy is childishly transparent: 

If, said Collier and after him Steele, the Restoration 
dramatists intended their pictures of young men about 
town as satires, then they had been misunderstood, for 
these heroes were commonly regarded by the audience as 
models of perfect gentility. ‘“ The-truth of it is,” said 
Steele,t “the accomplished gentleman upon the English 
stage, is the person that is familiar with other men’s 
wives, and indifferent to his own; as the fine woman is 
generally, a composition of sprightliness and falsehoods — 
I have often wondered that our ordinary poets cannot 
frame to themselves the idea of a fine man who is not a 
whore-master, or a fine woman that is not a jilt.” All 
this, he said, repeating in more moderate language what 
Collier had said before him, caused great mischief. The 
frequent reflections on love and marriage which had been 
heard from the mouths of the characters of comedy were 
responsible for a great deal of the corrupt sentiment which 
prevailed upon these subjects; for whatever the dramatist . 
might pretend as to satire, “It is not every youth that 
can behold the gentleman of the comedy represented with 
a good grace, leading a loose and profligate life, and con- 
demning virtuous affection as insipid, and not be made 
secretly emulous of what appears so amiable to a whole 
audience.” This evil was to be corrected in two ways: 
first, by seeing that the bad man achieved failure and not 
success in the end, and second, since the audience persisted 

in regarding dramatic types as examples for imitation, by 
cde 1 Spectator, 446. 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 243 


presenting for such imitation images of virtue instead of 
profligacy. 
- Both of these suggestions ran counter to certain ideas 
long prevalent. As far back as Jonson poetic justice had 
been looked upon as somewhat out of place in comedy, 
and the point had been brought up in the course of the 
Collier controversy. The purpose of comedy, said Drake,* 
is, indeed, to instruct by example; but it proceeds by 
showing what should be avoided rather than what should 
be imitated. And there must be no examples except for 
caution. Vanbrugh had expressed the same idea more 
fully.2 He has drawn, he says, the fine gentleman as he 
appears in life. He has laid open his vices as well as his 
virtues, and it is the business of the audience to observe 
where the gentleman’s flaws lessen his value, and to see 
how much finer a thing he would have been without them. 
In theory, Vanbrugh was nearer right than Steele or 
Collier. Comedy must present real and not ideal char- 
‘acters, but Restoration Comedy had not fairly laid open 
virtues and vices. It had too often covered the faults of 
its gallant heroes or represented vices so amiably that they 
seemed virtues. A great drama might have been made by 
throwing, as Vanbrugh suggests, the faults of a character 
in relief by placing them side by side with his virtues; but 
this the Restoration drama had not often done. In dis- 
gust with the dramatic product of the preceding age, 
Steele threw overboard its whole method, sound as it was, 
and attempted to found.a new comedy on an impossible 
principle. The ideally virtuous hero whom he wished to 
set up must always appear as a perfect monster. 
Disgusted as he was with the actual dramatic product 
of the Restoration period, Steele was in no mood to con- 


1 Ancient and Modern Stages Surveyed. 1699. 
2 Short Vindication, etc. 


244 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


sider the soundness of its theory. In numerous papers in 
the “Spectator” he attacked the old plays violently and laid 
down the theory of a new sort of comedy, while in his 
plays he illustrated how this theory might be put into 
practice. When engaged on the destructive side, he wisely 
picked out “ Sir Fopling Flutter ” as the particular object of 
his wrath. It was a play of long-continued popularity, 
and as he said, regarded as a type of genteel comedy. Yet 
it was one of the very worst, and pretty well justified his 
definition of it as a perfect contradiction of good manners, 
good sense, and common honesty. The hero, as he says, is 
a direct knave in his dealings and often a clown in his 
language. He tries to marry his friend to a girl whom 
he hopes afterwards to make his mistress, and he not only 
deserts but reviles those women who have been foolish 
enough to listen to his love-making in the past. 

Dennis, a staunch upholder of the old comedy, wrote 
““A Defense of Sir Fopling Flutter” in reply to Steele 
who, he says, admits that it represents nature but “nature 
in its utmost corruption and degeneracy.” ‘“ But,’ Dennis 
continues, “can anything but corrupt and degenerate 
nature be the proper subject of ridicule? and can anything 
but ridicule be the proper subject of comedy”? For 
nearly half a century, he says, judges praised Sir Fopling 
because it was found to “ answer the two ends of comedy, 
pleasure and instruction.” Steele says that Dorimant is 
not a fine gentleman. He was, says Dennis, a fine gentle- 
man according to the idea of the time, as is proved by the 
fact that he was so regarded. Steele, he says, in supposing 
that the hero of this play is held up for imitation, shows 
simply that he knows nothing of the rules of comedy, the 
purpose of which is not to set up patterns of perfection 
but to picture existing follies which we are to despise, 
and to show that being done upon the comic stage which 


———— es 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 245 


ought never to be done upon the stage of the world. Here 
again Dennis was right so far as theory was concerned. 
He put his finger upon the danger of Steele’s comedy, 
which lay in the fact that by proposing examples of vir- 
tue it was likely to cease to be either realistic or funny. But 
in the case of the particular example, “ Sir Fopling Flutter,” 
Steele was right. Dennis failed to see that in fact 
Etherege’s comedy failed as lamentably as Steele’s to live 
up to the rule which he was laying down; for its rakish hero 
was presented in such a way that his vices seemed virtues 
and he was indeed proposed and taken as an example of 
the perfect man of pleasure. Steele saw all this perfectly 
and he turned again to Etherege’s play as the most effec- 
tive contrast for his own plays. 

In an epilogue written for ‘“‘ Measure for Measure” he 
says the nation is corrupt: 


“ Else say, in Briton why shou’d it be heard, 
That Etheredge to Shakespeare is preferr’d? 
Whilst Dorimant to crowded audience wenches, 
Our Angelo repents to empty benches: 


ok *x * 2k * * K * 


The perjur’d Dorimant the beaux admire; 

Gay perjur’d Dorimant the belles desire: 

With fellow-feeling, and well conscious gust, 
Each sex applauds inexorable lust. 

For shame, for shame, ye men of sense begin, 
And scorn the base captivity of sin: 
Sometimes at least to understanding yield 

Nor always leave to appetite the field; 

Love, glory, friendship languishing, must stand, 
While sense and appetite have sole command; 
Give man sometimes some force in the dispute, 
Be sometimes rational, tho’ ofterer brute.” 


And another time he represents the ghost of Sir Fopling 
Flutter as appalled by the popular success of the more 


246 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


virtuous hero of “ The Conscious Lovers.” The ghost 
speaks: + 


“ Ladies, ye stare as if ye knew me not— 
What! Can Sir Foppling be so soon forgot? 
There was a time, when Dorimant and I, 
Won every heart, and reign’d in every eye; 
Till this new sot, this moralizing fool, 

Had turn’d the theater into a school: 


* * 2 * * * * * 


Oh gentle George, if he had studied thee, 
He wou’d have learnt to lard his comedy: 


* * x * * K * * 


His hero too— oh, ’tis a faithful swain, 

As ever sigh’d upon Arcadian plain; 

Loving and eke belov’d, of youth and beauty, 
Yet wants to reconcile his love and duty. © 
Oh! Etheridge, bard of easy, luscious vein, 
Where are the heroes, of thy happy reign? 

Old Roman heroes famous for undoing, 

Who rais’d their characters on rape and ruin! 
Thy Dorimant with nobler maxims blest, 

Had made right use of innocence distressed; 
Superior to reproach of guilt, or shame, 

Had first enjoy’d and then despis’d the dame; 
While thou his waste of fortune to repair, 
Had crown’d his virtues with some wealthy fair. 
Rise, mighty shade, nor let this upstart drone, 
This puling moralist, usurp thy throne; 

Once more assert thy juster empire here, 

Till then, I take my leave—adieu mes cheres.” 


There was no danger that the audience would fail to 
realize the difference between the new comedy and the old. 

The theories expressed in the quotation just given de- 
mand a modification of the Restoration tradition in two 


1 Prologue to The Conscious Lovers when played before the 
gentlemen of the College of Dublin, 7th March, 1722. 


ee han he & 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 247 


ways: first, by the elimination of over-frankness whatever 
its purpose; and second, by the introduction of the ideal 
hero as a foil to the imperfect one. In making these de- 
mands, however, Steele expressed nothing that was not 
implicit in Collier. Like Collier, he had pointed out that 
that old comedy was smutty and blasphemous, and that 
the audience had taken as models for imitation characters 
who were by no means perfect. 

Steele’s original contribution consisted in the introduc- 
tion of the element called sentiment, which, though new 
in theory, was no invention of his. Cibber had stumbled 
upon it in 1696, and the success of his play had shown 
that it. appealed to an actual appetite of the audience. 
Steele saw in it a useful element to replace the salt which 
he extracted from the old formula, and proceeded to he 
it a theoretical defense. sa 

(Sentiment was totally out of place in Pesrcratinn Com- 
edy with its fondness for a hard, intellectual and cruel 
attitude. Comedy had concerned itself with the crimes 
and follies of mankind, and regarded emotional idealism, 
if existent, as at least outside its sphere of hard realism. 
Drake*+ had put the case clearly when in speaking of 
Etherege’s ‘‘ The Comical Revenge” he had said: ‘“ These 
scruples of honor, and extravagancies of jealousy and de- 
spair are unnatural on the comic stage,” and again: “ how- 
ever brave and generous in action it appear, consider’d 
simply in itself, it is a trespass against justice and pro- 
priety of manners in that place” (ie., in comedy)) But 
to make a place in comedy for ecstasies of jealousy and 
despair, and for scenes illustrating heroism and the prin- 
ciples of honor, was exactly the aim that Steele had. 
“Anything,” he wrote, “that has its foundation in happi- 

1 Ancient and Modern Stages Surveyed. 


248 COMEDY AND CONSCIRNCE 


ness and success must be allowed to be the object of 
comedy; and sure it must be an improvement of it to 
friroduce a joy too exquisite for laughter.” * 

Persuasive as this plea is, it contains the fatal germ of 
| half of what is bad in Reiental Comedy. When com- 
edy left the path of laughter to seek sentiment, it went 
down and down until it not only ceased to be funny but 
became maudlin. ’One does not know what to think of an 
audience that would weep over “ Love’s Last Shift” 
“The Conscious Lovers.” But we are told that ae cnnee 
did so, and in referring to a performance of the latter 
play Steele writes: ‘‘I must, therefore, contend that the 
tears which were shed on that occasion flowed from reason 
and good sense, and that men ought not to be laughed 
at for weeping till we are come to a more clear notion 
of what is to be imputed to the hardness of the head and 
the softness of the heart.’”’ Modern criticism has decided 
that the softness which results in such tears as these lies 
in the head. 

The device of the eleventh-hour or fifth-act repentance 
became popular because it so perfectly fitted the require- 
ments of the new comedy. The well-known difficulty of 
devising intrigue for a perfect character was avoided by 
making him fallible at first and perfecting him at the end 
by means of remorse and repentance. Thus plot-making 
was made easier, and in addition a splendid opportunity 
was given for the introduction of tender scenes of forgive- 
ness and reconciliation which were redolent with that joy 
too deep for laughter. As is the case with all the devices 
of Sentimental Comedy, Steele gave this one a theoretical 
defense; and in the preface to “ The Lying Lover ” he gives 
the moral of his action. Speaking of his hero, he says: 
‘Thus he makes false love, gets drunk, and kills his man; 


1 Preface to The Conscious Lovers. 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 249 


but in the fifth act awakes from his debauch, with the 
compunction and remorse which is suitable to a man’s 
finding himself in a gaol for the death of his friend, with- 
out his knowing why. The anguish he there expresses, and 
the mutual sorrow between an only child and a tender 
father in that distress, are, perhaps, an injury to the rules 
of comedy, but I am sure they are a justice to those of 
morality.” 

This is but another illustration of the fact that Senti- | 
mental Comedy was not a spontaneous expression but a_ 
machine-made product constructed in accordance with 
definite rules. As such, it became necessarily stereotyped 
and artificial, and the late-reform motif was so obviously 
a mere convention that, as Fielding protested, the heroes 
were often notorious rogues and the heroines abandoned 
jilts during the first four acts and became respectively 
worthy gentlemen and women of virtue at the end for no 
other reason than that the play was drawing to a conclu- 
sion. It is as natural, he said, for stage rogues to repent 
in the last act_of a play as for real ones to be seized 
with remorse in the last. hour_of.their lives. 

Steele thought he had found in Latin comedy a justifica- 
tion for his theory that laughter was not the chief business 
of comedy. In “ Spectator’ 502 he discusses the question in 
connection with a play of Terence. ‘ There is,” he says, 
in ‘The Self-Tormenter’ a perfect picture of human life 
but nothing to raise a laugh.” He notes that the famous 
phrase ‘‘ Homo sum,” etc. is said to have created instanta- 
neous applause in the Roman theater, but regrets that it 
would not have done so had the words been spoken on an 
English stage; for an English audience cares nothing for 
the truths of simple human nature but prefers to laugh at 
what is directly against common sense and honesty. Ac- 

1 Tom Jones. Book VIII, Chap. 1. 


250 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


cordingly, when Steele determined to write a final illustra- 
tion of all his theories, he went to Terence for the plot of 
“The Conscious Lovers.” And he took care to warn the 
public long beforehand that it was to see not merely a 
play but an illustration of all that the stage, henceforth, 
should aim to be. How carefully he advertised it in ad- 
vance has already been shown in Chapter VIII. 

\ The play was to make its principal appeal not to the 
sense of the comic but to more serious emotions. Its 
chief aim was to be innocent and to instruct by presenting 
a picture of the perfect gentleman. The plain tendency 
of such a comedy to upset the long-established but dying 
English tradition was recognized immediately; and a little 
controversy raged around it. Dennis, especially, attacked 
it violently in “ Remarks on the Conscious Lovers ” (1728). 
Whatever one may think of Dennis, he showed consider- 
able penetration. and a tendency to go directly to the root 
of the matter. Even before the appearance of ‘“ The Con- 
scious Lovers” he had recognized Terence’s weakness on 
the comic side,’ and in the pamphlet just referred to he 
goes immediately to the point. Steele had said that his 
chief design was to write an innocent performance. Dennis 
thereupon points out that, while innocence may be a good 
beginning, it is hardly a satisfactory chief design. He 
points out so well the fact that Sentimental Comedy is 
bad Comedy because it is not comedy at all that it is 
worth while to quote him: 

a When Sir Richard says, that anything that has its 
in happiness and success must be the subject 
—with that species of 
tragedy_which has _ahappy catastrophe. When he says, 
that ’tis an improvement of comedy to introduce a joy too 

1 Original Letters, ete. 1721. 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 251 


exquisite for laughter, he takes all the care that he can 
to show that he knows nothing of the nature of comedy. 
... When Sir Richard talks of a joy too exquisite for 
laughter, he seems not to know that joy, generally taken, 
is common like anger, indignation, love, to all sorts of 
poetry, to the epic, the dramatic, the lyric; but that 
that kind of joy which is attended with laughter, is a 
characteristic of comedy; as terror or compassion, accord- 
ing as the one or the other is predominant, makes the 
characteristic of tragedy, as admiration does of epic 
poetry. 

“When Sir Richard says, that weeping upon the sight 
of a deplorable object is not a subject for laughter, but 
that ’tis agreeable to good sense and to humanity, he says 
nothing but what all the sensible part of the world has 
already granted; but then all the sensible part of the 
world have always deny’d, that a deplorable object is fit 
to be shown in comedy. When Sir George Etherege, in 
his comedy of ‘Sir Fopling Flutter,’ shows Loveit in all 
the heights and violence of grief and rage, the judicious 
poet takes care to give those passions a ridiculous turn by 
the mouth of Dorimant.” | 

The newspaper “ The Freeman’s Journal” attacks the 
play twice, and on the first occasion devotes nearly three 
columns to it.t It finds,? as a modern reader must find, 
: that the hero is so perfect as almost to suggest burlesque, 
and justly enough complains of the play: ‘there are more 
tears than laughter produced by it.’”’ Like Dennis, too, the 
critic of this newspaper sees the weakness of sentimental 
comedy when he writes: 

“We are told after, that anything that has its founda- 


1 November 14, 1722. 
2 November 28, 1722. 


Zoe COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


tion in happiness and success, must be allow’d to be the 
subject of comedy; here we are equally at a loss in our 
critic as in our comedian — 

“For it is indisputably true, that some instances of 
success and happiness may be of a kind too elevated, and 
by consequence, very improper for comedy. 

“We are likewise in very moving terms instructed, that 
tears, which were shed in the case of the father and 
daughter, flow’d from reason and good sense. It seems 
that crying as well as laughing are marks of a reasonable 
nature, and ought to specially enter the definition of a 
Np timental comedy was not good comedy for the sim- 
ple reason that it was not comedy at all; and it was not 
good drama because of its artificiality and falsity. But 
there was no doubt as to the popular success of “ The 
Conscious Lovers.” It triumphed in spite of its plain 
tendency, which Dennis and others pointed out, to upset 
the comic tradition; and its triumph was a triumph for 
the type. After it, plays like those by Fielding were only 
sporadic anachronisms. There were protests, such as that 
voiced by parson Adams when he remarked slyly that 
Steele’s play contained some things almost solemn enough 
for a sermon, or when Fielding wrote the still more 
delightful scene in “Tom Jones”’ where the puppet show 
is performed ‘“ with great regularity and decency,” being 
only the fine and serious part of ‘‘ The Provok’d Husband ” 
“without any low wit or humor, or jest, and performed 
by a man whose discourse is only the necessity of rational 
entertainment and the duty of every puppet-show to aim 
chiefly at the improvement of the morals of the young.” 

It was not until the time of Goldsmith and Sheridan 
that an effective protest was set up, and even those two 
writers by no means immediately killed the tradition, as 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 253 


the complaints of Hazlitt will show. The triumph of 
sentimental comedy was the triumph~of~ morality” and 
criticism over_wit. Certainly morality was more powerful 
than criticism, but morality was backed by the efforts of 
the most influential dramatic critic of the time. From the 
old criticism he took the idea of the moral end of literature 
and made this idea dominant in his theories; but he was 
careful, also, to give a critical justification, to all the new 
elements which were introduced so that his audience 
might indulge their moralistic tendencies with the further 
satisfaction of feeling that they had the support of critical 
theory. . 

So just are many of the charges brought against Restora- 
tion Comedy, and so persuasive are Steele’s pleas for a 
comedy which would substitute ideals for cynicism, and 
human emotion for heartless laughter, that if one reads 
only the criticism and does not taste its fruit, one is 
inclined to sympathize wholly with the reformers. But 
one has only to read a few of the comedies of the early 
eighteenth century to see how completely they failed, not 
only to embody ideals, but to achieve readability. Nat- 
urally one asks why. 


Primarily, they were failures because their authors re- } 


fused to recognize that a comedy cast in a realistic mould 


must make some attempt to be true to actual character | 
and events. An ideal world may be made convincing if | 


the scene is laid in far-off time, or perhaps on the coast 
of some unknown Bohemia, but if the action of a play 
takes place in a contemporary drawing-room, it must bear 
some sort of resemblance to what really takes place in such 
a drawing-room. One can learn no lesson from the high 
tone and the romantic nobility exhibited by the perfected 
heroes of Steele or Cibber because one sees that they bear 
no relation to the life which the comedy of manners pre- 


254 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


tends to depict. It is all very well to show the mag- 
nanimous hero rewarded in the end by the discovery of 
unexpected wealth in the possession of his true love; but 
it gives no impulse to imitation, because the reader knows 
that though he may behave as nobly as the hero he has 
no reason to expect a similar prize, there being no con- 
nection between virtuous action and fortuitous reward. 
In other words, the whole theory of poetic justice, if 


' interpreted as childishly as the eighteenth century in- 


terpreted it, is wrong. If men are to be encouraged to 
seek virtue, one must show its real rewards by picturing 
the inherent beauty of uprightness or the self-satisfaction 
of conscious rectitude. But this the sentimentalist was 
not content to do. He insisted on showing that virtue paid 
in the material sense; and he made material prosperity its 
reward, though all the world knew that such was not 
necessarily the case. {Over all the drama of the period 
there is the taint of falsity in language and sentiment, 
for the dramatists did not believe the truth of what they 


_ were writing. Under this tradition wit died, for the basis 


of wit is a realization and recognition of the contrast be- 


| tween ideals and reality, while the sentimentalist insisted 
_ upon their identity. The new dramatist was so afraid of 
reality that he could never give it the opportunity of a 


_jest, and pungent observation disappears in false and com- 
'placent morality. Humor comes to be considered as “ low,” 


and Fielding asks in vain what his contemporaries mean, 
pointing out that at any rate they have succeeded in 
banishing all humor from the stage and have made the 
theater as dull as a drawing room. 

The Restoration comic dramatist, on the other hand, was 
right in theory. He saw that a comedy of manners must 
represent to a considerable extent the actual manners of 

1 Tom Jones. Book V, Chap. 1. 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 255 


its time, that it must be allowed a certain freedom of 
satire, and that its action should be regulated to a con- 
siderable extent by an observation of what actually takes 
place in society. He distributed rewards and punishments 
not according to any ideal system of morality but accord- 
ing to probability, and realized that to be convincing he 
must be worldly. He saw the fallacy of the perfect 
monster as hero, and realized that characters must be pre- 
sented with their beauties and blemishes in conflict and 
that he must, in a word, show life rather as it is than as 
it ought to be, and must rather depict than ignore vice. 
But sound as it was in theory, Restoration Comedy has 
shocked all succeeding generations; partly because it 
mirrored Restoration life, which itself would have shocked 
all subsequent generations, but partly also because the | 
sound method of comedy was perversely used. The men 
who wrote the plays were men of their age, and they 
shared its vices. Sometimes they cynically pandered to a 
corrupt taste which they did not wholly share, as in the 
case of Dryden; while sometimes they were repulsive only 
because they carefully expressed that cynical idea of life 
which they held but which the bulk of their subsequent 
readers has not shared. 

But the remedy for ‘this was not to be found in a new 
type of comedy. There was no reason why a comedy 
open to no reasonable objection on the moral ground 
might not have been written in the old style. There was 
nothing essentially vicious in the model. We may con- 
ceive that if society purified itself the drama would have 
purified itself also. It would have continued to mirror 
real life, but as real life became less brutal than Restora- 
tion life the reflection of it would have been less revolting, 
and a Wycherley born in the latter eighteenth century 
would not have been the same as a Wycherley of the 


256 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


seventeenth. A start toward a better comedy had been 
made by Vanbrugh. In spite of some freedom, there is 
nothing that need shock a sophisticated reader in “ The 
Relapse,” though there is much in Etherege, for instance, 
to shock any reader. But such a development was not 
to be. The self-conscious moral movement, and the 
simultaneous development of sentimentalism, practically 
killed comedy. 


This study has taken us over a wide field both of time 
and of subject matter — over too wide a field, perhaps, to 
be adequately examined in a single book. But such a com- 
prehensive survey was necessary if anything was to be 
added to the understanding of the phenomenon whose 
ending was Sentimental Comedy —a phenomenon often 
observed, but never adequately explained, and concerning 
which there has been the widest possible difference of 
opinion. I hope that I have been able to make clear what 
happened, when it happened, and, to some extent, why it 
happened. Certainly the movement cannot be said to have 
had any single cause. It is not true that it was the 
direct result of the Collier controversy, nor is it true that 
Collier had no influence upon it. Still less is it true that, 
as Mr. Bernbaum in his “ Drama of Sensibility ’”’ seems 
to imply, the movement was not fundamentally the result 
of the moral badness of Restoration writers, but simply 
the result of the development of a sentimental view 
of life. It was the result of many causes interacting upon 
one other, and like any important intellectual movement 
it was too complex ever to be fully explained. But 
by examining the drama itself, the social life which it re- 
flects, the movement for general reform, specific attacks 
on the stage, and the development of criticism, we get a 
_ truer idea of the phenomenon than would have been pos- 


THE THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 257 


sible if we had confined our attention to any one of these 
departments. At least we can see what happened. 

In the beginning a leisure class, relieved from adversity 
and artificial restriction, plunged into dissipation, and de- 
veloped a comedy which reflected its life and expressed its 
ideals, embodying all its wit, cynicism, and perversity. As 
the reaction died away and life returned to something more 
like normal conditions, comedy continued to picture the 
social life of the time which had given it birth; and by | 
the latter part of the seventeenth century was already | 
somewhat of an anachronism following rather a tradition | 
than expressing the idea of the new generation which had | 
grown up and taken its place in the theater. A general | 
movement for reform predisposed the public to receive 
favorably the violent but pointed attacks of an able 
fanatic; and it awoke violently to the realization that 
popular comedy did not express the ideals of its age. 
Finally, criticism, just establishing a rapport with popular 
literature, evolved a set of critical theories based partly on 
old and partly on new ideas, which encouraged and, to 
some extent, directed the development of a new comic 
tradition more closely suited than the old to the taste of 
its generation. 

Thus the question with which we started, “ To what ex- 
tent was Collier responsible for the development of senti- 
mental comedy?” is seen to be an extremely complicated 
one, and one which is perhaps unanswerable. No man 
and no argument can control the course of events. A man 
and his arguments are merely a crystallization of the 
spirit of the age; and the man leads only in the sense of 
taking people where they want to go, for arguments are the 
result of opinions rather than opinions the result of argu- 
ments. Since all the characteristics of the movement were 
discernible before Collier wrote, he cannot be said to 


258 COMEDY AND CONSCIENCE 


be responsible for it. On the other hand, since it became 
considerably accentuated immediately after the appear- 
ance of his book, and since Steele, its principal protagonist, 
acknowledged himself as Collier’s follower, the latter must 
have been, at least, the most effective mouthpiece of the 
opposition. He formulated the argument which was the 
result of the opinion of his time, and he led the people 
where they were ready to go. Without him, Restoration 
Comedy would have died of its own accord; but he hastened © 
its death. He produced Sentimental Comedy not more 
than Rousseau produced the French Revolution; but like 
Rousseau he made a movement articulate. And as Rous- 
seau’s is the name most closely associated with the French 
Revolution, so justly enough that of Collier is the one most 
closely associated with the literary triumph of morality 
and dullness. nore Ta hipaleeaie 


“ 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Some Critical Works Published Between 1660 and 1700. 


It was thought advisible to add this bibliography which is, so far 
as I know, the only one which has been compiled, as an 
illustration of Chapter Ill. It is not continued beyond 1700 
as there is a bibliography to W. H. Durham’s “ Critical Essays 
of the Eighteenth Century.” I include biographies of literary 
men and in general any “ books about books” in this list. 


(F. Kirkman.) Tom Tyler and his wife. — Together with an exact 
catalogue of all the plays that were ever yet printed. The 
second impression. 1661. 

Richard Flecknoe. Loves Kingdom — With a short treatise of the 
English Stage. 1664. 

Letters upon several occasions; written by and between Mr. Dry- 
den, Mr. Wycherley, Mr. , Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Dennis. 
Published by Mr. Dennis. 1666. 

The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley. (With Sprat’s “ Life.’’) 
1668. 

Richard Flecknoe. Sir William Davenant’s voyage to the other 
world: with his adventures in the poet’s Elyzium. A Poetical 
Fiction. 1668. 

(F. Kirkman.) Nicomede— Together with an exact catalogue of 
all the English stage-plays printed. 1671. 

(R. Rapin.) Reflections upon the use of the eloquence of these 
times. 1672. 

(R. Rapin.) A Comparison between the eloquence éf Demosthenes . 
and Cicero. Translated out of the French. 1672. 

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham: The Rehearsal. 1672. 

(Richard Leigh?) The Censure of the Rota on Mr. Dryden’s Con- 
quest of Granada. 1673. 

A description of the Academy of the Athenian Virtuosi with a 
discourse held there in vindication of Mr. Dryden’s Conquest 
of Granada; against the author of the Censure of the Rota. 
1673. 


259 


ele ie 


260 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Mr. Dryden vindicated, in a reply to the Friendly Vindication of 
Mr. Dryden. With reflections on the Rota. 1673. 

Remarks on the humors and conversations of the town. 1672. 

Remarks upon Remarks, or a vindication of the conversations of 
the town. 1673. 

Animadversions on two late books. — One called — Remarks etc. 
The other called Reflections on Marriage ete. 1673. 

R. Rapin. The comparison of Plato and Aristotle — translated 
from the French. 1673. 

(Dryden, Shadwell, and Crown.) Notes and observations on “The 
Empress of Morocco.” 1673. 

Raulery a la mode considered ete. 1673. (The British Museum has 
a copy with a title page dated 1663. This is probably an 
error as the book is entered in the Term Catalogues in 1673.) 

R. Rapin. Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie. (Trans- 
lated by Thomas Rymer.) 1673. 

(E. Settle.) Notes and observations on The Empress of Morocco 
revised. 1674. 

R. Flecknoe. A treatise of the sports of wit. 1675. 

Edward Phillips. Theatrum Poetarum.—with some observations 
and reflections upon many of them, particularly those of our 
nation. Together with a prefactory discourse of the poets and 
poetry in general. 1675. 

W. Williams. Poetical Piety, or poetry made pious. 1677. 

T. Rymer. The tragedies of the last age considered and examined 
by the practice of the ancients and by the common sense of 
all ages. 1678. 

Reflections upon ancient and modern philosophy —translated out 
of the French by A. L. 1678. 

(Thomas Durfy) The Fool turned critic. A Comedy. 1678. 

The Refined Courtier, or a correction of several indecencies crept 
into civil conversation. 1678. 

J. Davies. Instructions for history —out of the French. (of R. 
Rapin.) 1680. 

Genuine Remains of Samuel Butler. (Printed in 1759 but written 
before 1680.) 

(J. Puleney.) A treatise of the loftiness or elegency of speech. 
Written originally in Greek —and now translated out of the 
French etc. 1680. 

Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon. Horace’s Art of Poetry 
made English. 1680. 

(Mulgrave and Dryden?) An essay upon Satyre. 1680. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 261 


T. Hobbes. The art of rhetoric. 1681. 

John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave. An essay upon poetry. 1682. 

Some instructions concerning the art of oratory. 1682. 

Hedelin, Archbishop. The whole art of the stage— written in 
French — and now made English. 1684. 

(Soame and Dryden.) The art of poetry —made English. (From 
Boileau.) 1683. 

(Shadwell?) Some reflections on the pretended parallel in the 
play The Duke of Guise. 1683. 

John Dryden. Of dramatic poesie. 1684. 

T. Creech. The Idylliums of Theocritus, with Rapin’s discourse of 
pastorals. Done into English. 1684. 

- Mixed essays upon Tragedies, Comedies, Italian comedies, English 
comedies and operas. Written originally in French by Sieur 
de Saint Evremond. 1685. 

(W. Winstanly.) The lives of the most famous English poets — 
from the time of King William the Conqueror to the reign 
of his present Majesty, King James II. 1686. 

Miscellanea: or various discourses. Written originally by Sieur de 
St. Evremond and made English by F. Spence. 1686. 

M. Clifford. Notes upon Mr. Dryden’s poem in four letter — To 
which are annexed some reflections upon The Hind and the 
Panther. By another hand. 1687. 

(EK. Settle.) Reflections on several of Mr. Dryden’s plays. Particu- 
larly the first and second parts of the Conquest of Granada. 
1687. 

Spenser Redivivious. Containing the first book of the Fairy Queen, 
his essential design preserved, but his obsolete language and 
manner of verse totally laid aside— By a person of quality. 
(Contains a critical preface.) 1687. 

(Tom Brown.) The reason of Mr. Bays’ changing his religion. 1688. 
To Poet Bavius. (Against Dryden.) 1668. 

G. Langbaine. Momus Triumphans; or the plagiaries of the Eng- 
lish stage. 1688. 

The man of honor.. (Concerning Dryden.) 1688. 

The modest critic; or remarks upon the most eminent historians 
— By one of the Port-Royal. 1698. 

(Tom Brown?) The Reason of Mr. Joseph Haines the player’s con- 
version and re-conversion. 1689. 

The late converts exposed: Or the reason of Mr. Bays’ changing his 
religion — part the second. 1690. 

Sir William Temple. Miscellanea, the second part. 1690. 


262 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Wit for money, or poet Stutter (Durfey). A dialogue — contain- 
ing reflections on some late plays, particularly on Love for 
Money, or the Boarding School. 1691. 

A search after wit, or a visitation of the authors. 1691. 

G. Langbaine. An account of the English dramatic poets. 1691. 

The art of pleasing conversation. Written by Cardinal Richelieu. 
1691. 

A letter to Mr. Durfey occasioned by his play called The Marriage- 
Hater Matched. (Prefixed to the play.) 1692. 

Poeta Infamis; or, a poet not worth hanging. 1692. 

(Charles Gildon?) Miscellaneous poems upon several occasions; 
consisting of original poems by the Duke of Buckingham, 

--Cowley, Milton, Prior, etc. — with an essay upon satyr by M. 
Dacier. 1692. 

Thomas Rymer. A short view of tragedy. 1693. 

John Dennis. The impartial critic, or some observations upon a 
late book, entitled, A Short View of Tragedy. 1698. 

John Dennis. Miscellanies in verse and prose. 1693. 

(R. Rapin.) Mr. Rapin’s reflections on Aristotle’s treatise of 
poesie — Made English by—Mr. R. to which is added some 
reflections on English poetry. 1694. 

(J. Wright.) Country conversations. 1694. 

(P. Motteux.) The Works of F. Rabelais— with a large account of 
his life. 1694. 

Edward Phillips. Letters of state written by John Milton —to 
which is added an account of his life. 1694. 

(Charles Gildon.) Miscellaneous letters and essays, on several sub- 
jects. — By several gentlemen and ladies. 1694. 

(T. Taylor.) Monsieur Rapin’s comparison of Thucydides and Livy. 
Translated into English. 1694. 

(L. Echard.) Plautus’ comedies, Amphitryon, Epidicus, and Rudens, 
made English, with critical remarks upon each play. 1694. 

Sir Thomas Pope Blount: De re poetica. 1694. 

Monsieur Bossu’s treatise of the Epic Poem—to which are added 
an essay upon satyr, by Monsieur D’Acier; and a treatise upon 
pastorals, by Monsieur Fontanell. 1695. 

The Miscellaneous works of Charles Blount, esq.— To which is 
prefixed the life of the author, and an account and vindica- 
tion of his death. 1695. 

A reflection on our modern poesie, an essay. 1695. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 263 


Letters upon several occasions; written by and between Mr. Dry- 
den, Mr. Wycherley, Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Dennis. (Con- 
tains Congreve’s “An Essay Concerning Humor”.) 1696. 

John Dennis. Remarks on—Prince Arthur, an heroic poem — 
and — several new remarks upon Virgil. 1696. 

A letter to the Duke of Vivone by — Monsieur Boileau. Translated 
by T. Check esq. Monsieur Boileau’s speech to the Academy. 
Translated by Mr. Dennis. 1697. 

Familiar Letters. (Rochester, Otway, Katherine Phillips and 
others.) 1697. | 

Money masters all things: —To which is added—a satyr on Mr. 
Dryden, and several other modern translators ete. 1698. 

(Charles Gildon.) The lives and characters of the English dramatic 
poets; — First begun by Mr. Langbaine; improved and con- 
tinued down to this time, by a careful hand. (1698). 

Luke Milbourne. Notes on Dryden’s Virgil. 1698. 

Verdicts of the learned concerning Virgil’s and Homer’s heroic 
poems; with regular and irregular thoughts on poets and orators. 
1698. 

An essay upon sublime style, translated from the Greek of Longinus, 
the rhetorician; compared with the French of the Sieur Boileau- 
Despreaux. 1698. 

(John Toland.) A Complete collection of the historical, poetical 
and miscellaneous works of John Milton—To which is pref- 
aced the life of the author. 1698. 

(J. Wright.) Historia Histrionica: An historical account of the 
English stage — In a dialogue of Plays and Players. 1699. 

(John Toland.) Amyntor; or a defense of Milton’s life. 1699. 

Sir Richard Blackmore: A Satyre against wit. 1700. 

A satyr upon a late pamphlet, entitled, A Satyr Against Wit. 1700. 

Discommendatory verses, on those which are truly commendatory, 
on the author of the two Arthurs, and the Saytr Against Wit. 
1700. ; 

Samuel Wesley: An epistle to a friend concerning poetry. 1700. 

A new session of the poets, occasioned by the death of Mr. Dry- 
den. 1700. 

Poetae Brinnicae. A poem satirical and panegyrical upon the 
English poets. 1700. 

Homer and Virgil not to be compared with the two Arthurs. 1700. 

The polite gentleman. 1700. 


264 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Familiar and courtly letters, written by Monsieur Voiture —To 
which is added, a collection of letters of friendship, and other 
occasional letters, written by Mr. Dryden, Mr. Wycherley, 
Mr. ——, Mr. Congreve, Mr. Dennis, and other hands. 1700. 

John Toland. The Oceana of James Harrington and his other 
works — with an exact account of his life prefixed. 1700. 

Edward Bysshe. The art of English poetry. 1700(?) 1702(?) 


II 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE COLLIER 
CONTROVERSY 


I have attempted to make this bibliography as nearly complete 
as possible. Some years ago a tentative one was published in 
“Notes and Queries” and Dr. Johannes Ballein in his “ Jeremy 
Colliers Angriff auf die Englische Buhne” gives a much more 
extensive one. Mine contains more items than either. Three 
disagreements with Dr. Ballein may be noted and defended. 

He records one title, “ Hell upon Earth ” and in the text says: 
“Gegen die Buhne gerichted ist dagegen das anonyme Hell upon 
Earth, or The Language of the Play-House. Diese Schrift, die 
ich ebenfalls nicht habe sehen konnen, wird von W. C. Ward in 
seiner Ausgabe von Vanbrugh’s Werken citiert und erschein nach 
ihm 2-3 Jahre nach dem Sturm, d. h. also wohl 1705 or 1706.” 

Ward’s statement is: “The anonymous author of a pamphlet 
published two or three years later, under the edifying title of 
Hell upon Earth or the Language of the Play-House, makes the 
mournful admission that the horrid comedy of Love for Love, 
the Provok’d Wife, and the Spanish Fryar, are frequently acted 
in all places to which the players come.” I have been able to 
find no such pamphlet but the title is given in some editions of 
Bedford’s “Evil and Danger of Stage Plays ” to a section of 
that work. Ward’s pamphlet is probably Bedford’s “Evil and 
Danger of Stage Plays” and Ballein’s bibliography is wrong in 
assuming a separate and unproduceable pamphlet. 

But why did W. C. Ward give the title “Hell upon Earth,” 
and why did he call it anonymous? An examination of one copy 
of the “ Evil and Danger of Stage Plays” in the British Museum, 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 265 


reveals a mystery. After an elaborate title page “The Evil and 
Danger of Stage Plays etc.” come five sheets “To the Reader,” 
then a table of contents, then a page one, nearly half of which 
is taken up with the heading “The Evil and Danger of Stage 
Plays.” Next comes a second page one, identical with the first 
in text and key words at the bottom, but differing in that it is 
headed “ Hell upon Earth; or the Language of the Play-House.” 

Another copy of “ The Evil and Danger” in the British Museum 
does not show this peculiarity as it has only the first page one. 
But in it, as in the other, page 204 contains the quotation given 
by Ward. Hence it is obvious that the pamphlet he quotes is 
identical with “The Evil and Danger.” But did he simply copy 
this heading in the British Museum copy instead of the title 
page, and, furthermore, call it anonymous, or does there some- 
where exist a separate and anonymous edition of this pamphlet 
called “ Hell upon Earth ete.”, and is the British Museum copy 
a composite of the two different editions? That there should 
actually have been two editions is less likely, from the fact that 
the work is not a pamphlet in size, but a book of over 200 pages. 

As to the second disagreement, Ballein quotes the following from 
the dedication to “An Act at Oxford” (1704): “The viewer, 
(who wishes her majesty, the same place in the throne she has 
in his dictionary), drew the proclamation against irreligion, and 
her regulation of the theaters as imperfect as his works; therefore 
on the fast day out comes his supplemental pamphlet to rectify 
the government’s omission with the same modesty he formerly 
absolv’d it traytors.” Then Ballein comments: 

“ Mit was fiir einer Schrift haben wir in diesem “Supplemental 
Pamphlet” zu tun? Zunachst kénnte man sich versucht fihlen, 
an Colliers Dissuasive zu denken. Aber bei dem “ Supplemental 
Pamphlet ” handelt es sich ganz augenscheinlich um eine am Fasttag 
neu herausgekommene Schrift, wahrend Mr. Colliers ‘“ Dissuasive ” 
schon drei Wochen friiher erschienen und in den berechtigten 
Kreisen jedenfalls schon vor dem Fasstage verbreitet und gelesen 
worden war. Auch weist die Bezeichnung “Supplemental Pam- 
phlet” darauf hin, dass bereits eine andere Schrift Colliers 
vorangegangen war. Und endlich ist seine “ Dissuasive”’ durchaus 
nicht gegen irgendwelche “Omissions of the Government” 
gerichtet. Es wird zwar von dem Widerstand der Biihne gegen alle 
bishérigen Massregeln gesprochen, aber die Regierung wird mit 
keiner Silbe wegen irgendwelcher “ Ommissions” getadelt. Auch 


266 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


von den andern genannten Schriften durfte keine in Betracht 
kommen: denn erstlich erscheinen sie anonym, was bei der Frage 
stehen allem Anschein nach nicht der Fall war, und sodann stimmen 
auch sie inhaltlich nicht zu Backers Angaben. So durfen wir wohl 
annehmen, dass wir es hier mit einer neuen, wahrscheinlich verlorenen 
Schrift Colliers zu tun haben.” 

Here, Bellein has, I think, quite unnecessarily hypotheeated a 
lost pamphlet, where there is no reason to suspect it ever existed. 
Baker (the author of “An Act at Oxford”) does not use the words 
“Supplemental Pamphlet” as a title, but only means “ another 
pamphlet by Collier.” As Ballein himself points out earlier, the 
“ Daily Courrant ” for the day following the storm advertises Collier’s 
“ Dissuassive” for sale, and notes that on the fast day thousands 
of pamphlets were given away. No doubt Baker got one. If he 
received Collier’s “ Dissuasive,” then, when it was being advertised 
in the newspapers, he did not observe whether it was published 
that day or three weeks before. There is little doubt that it 
was the “ Dissuasive” that he referred to as the Supplemental 
Pamphlet. Ballein’s objects that it is not directed against Anne, 
but this is not to the point. Baker in the preface calls attention 
to the fact that Collier is not loyal to his sovereign. What he 
means is “ Anne has just ordered a reform of the theater. Every 
good subject will have confidence that she will do all this, but if 
that non-juror Collier comes out with his Dissuasive he implies 
that the Queen does not know her business.” The German scholar 
has, apparently (to revive the old story), evolved the book in- 
stead of the camel out of his inner consciousness. Such subjective . 
bibliography is not likely to please anyone but the compiler. 

As to the third disagreement, Settle’s “The City Ramble ” was 
printed without a date, and, owing to Settle’s unpopularity, with- 
out his name. Ballein feels that the reference in it to Collier is so 
direct that the play must have appeared earlier than August 17, 
1711, which is the date Genest gives it. Ballein finds support for 
his belief in Baker’s “Companion to the Play-House” which in 
one place gives the date as 1699, and then in another place leaves 
the play undated. The unsupported statement of an eighteenth 
century bibliography is not worth much, and a glance at con- 
temporary newspapers will reveal several advertisements like the 
following: “Never acted before. At the Theater-Royal and Drury 
Lane, this present Friday, being the 17th of August, (1711) will 
be presented a new comedy call’d ‘ The City Ramble’; or ‘ A Play- 
House Wedding.’” This same paper for August 21st, adds “ This 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 267 


play is sold by J. Knapton at the Crown in St. Paul’s churchyard 
and B. Lintott Nado’s Coffee-House, Temple Bar.’ The British 
Museum copy has “as it is acted at the Theater-Royal,” so, since 
there does not seem to me to be any strong internal evidence to 
show that the play might not have been written and first per- 
formed in 1711, I see nothing but the unsupported statement in an 
eighteenth century bibliography to support the unlikely theory 
that it was printed long after it was acted, and must conclude 
that 1711 is the proper date for the play. 
* Indicates that I have not read or seen the work in question. 


Animadversions on Mr. Congreve’s late answer to Mr. Collier. In 
a dialogue between Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson. 1698. 

Baker, Thomas. An Act at Oxford. 1704. 

Bedford, Arthur. The evil and danger of stage-plays showing their 
natural tendency to destroy religion, and introduce a general 
corruption of manners; in almost two thousand instances, 
taken from the plays of the two last years, against all the 
methods lately used for their reformation. 1706. 

Bedford, Arthur. The great abuse of music. 1711. 

(Bedford, Arthur?) A second advertisement concerning the pro- 
faneness of the play-house. 1705. , 

Bedford, Arthur. Serious reflections on the scandalous abuse and 
effects of the stage: in a sermon— preached —in the city of 
Bristol. 1705. 

Bedford, Arthur. A serious remonstrance in behalf of the Christian 
religion, against the horrid blasphemies and impieties which 
are still used in the English play-houses ... Shewing their 
plain tendency to overthrow all piety ... from almost seven 
thousand instances, taken out of the plays of the present 
century. 1719. 

Bedford, Arthur. The evil and mischief of stage playing: a sermon 
preached—in the city of London. 17380. (Second edition 
1735.) 

Bourbon, Armand, Prince de. The works of the most illustrious 
and pious Prince of Conti.— Translated from the French. 
*Bossuet, J. B. Maxims and reflections on plays. (A translation.) 

1699. 

(Tom Brown.) The Stage-beau tossed in a blanket: or, hypocrycy 
a la mode; exposed in a true picture of Jerry ..., a pre- 
tending scourge to the English stage. 1704. 


268 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


*Burridge, R. Scourge for the play-house, or the character of the 
English stage. 1702. 

Cibber, Colly. Love makes a man. 1701. 

Collier, Jeremy. A short view of the immorality and profaneness 
of the English stage, together with the sense of antiquity upon 
this argument. 1688. (8rd. edition 1698. 4th 1699.) 

Collier, Jeremy. A defense of the short view of the immorality and 
profaneness of the English stage Being a reply to Mr. 
Congreve’s Amendment.—And to the Vindication of the 
author of The Relapse. 1699. 

Collier, Jeremy. A second defense of the short view— Being, a 
reply to a book, entitled, The Antient and Modern Stages 
Surveyed. 1700. 

Collier, Jeremy. Mr. Collier’s dissuasive from the play-house, in a 
letter to a person of quality, occasioned by the late calamity 
of the tempest. 1703. 

Collier, Jeremy. Mr. Collier’s dissuasive from the play-house etc. — 
To which is added, a letter written by another hand; in an- 
swer to some questions sent by a person of quality. 1704. 

Collier, Jeremy. A farther vindication of The Short View — in 
which the objections of a late book, entitled A Defense of 
Plays, are considered. 1708. 

*Concio Laici, or the lay man’s sermon. (Cited in Bedford’s Evil 
and Danger.) 

The conduct of the stage considered. Being a short historical ac- 
count of its origin, progress, various aspects, and treatment in 
the Pagan, Jewish and Christian world. 1721. 

Congreve, William. Amendments of Mr. Collier’s false and imper- 
fect citations) &c. from the Old Batchelor, Double Dealer, 
Love for Love, Mourning Bride. By the author of those 
plays. 1698. 

A defense of dramatic poetry. 1698. 

Drake, J. The ancient and modern stages surveyed. Or Mr. 
Collier’s view of the immorality and prophaneness of the Eng- 
lish stage set in a true light. 1699. 

Esther; —A sacred tragedy.— With a dedication to the Lord 
Archbishop. of York. (From Racine.) 1705. 

Caffaro, Father. Beauty in distress. A tragedy, written by Mr. 
Motteux. With a discourse of the lawfulness and unlawful- 
ness of plays, lately written in French by the learned Father 
Caffaro, Divinity Professor at Paris. Sent in a letter to the 
author by a divine of the Church of England. 1698. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 269 


Defoe, Daniel. The Pacificator. 1700. 

Dennis, John. The person of quality’s answer to Mr. Collier’s 
letters: containing a defense of a regulated stage. (In “ Original 
Letters.”) 1721. 

Dennis, John. The stage defended — Occasioned by Mr. Law’s late 
pamphlet. 1726. 

Dennis, John. The usefulness of the stage to the happiness of 
mankind, to government and to religion. 1698. 

Durfey, Thomas. The campaigners: or, the pleasant adventures 
at Brussels. A comedy: With a preface upon a late reformer 
of the stage. 1698. 

Dryden, John. Fables: (Preface.) 1700. 

*Feigned Friendship, or the mad reformer. n.d. cir. 1700. 

*Field, John. A humble supplication to the Queen and parlia- 
ment to suppress play-houses and bearbaiting. 1703. 

Filmer, Edward. A defense of plays— wherein is offered the most 
probable method of reforming our plays. With a consideration 
how far vicious characters may be allowed on the stage. 1707. 

Heydegger’s letter to the Bishop of London. 1724. 

The immorality of the English pulpit as justly subjected to the 
notice of the English stage, as the immorality of the stage is 
to that of the pulpit. In a letter to Mr. Collier. 1698. 

Law, William. The absolute unlawfulness of the stage-entertain- 
ment fully demonstrated. 1726. 

Law Outlawed: — Together with an humble petition to the gov- 
ernors of the incurable ward of Bethlem to take pity on the 
poor distracted authors of the town, and not suffer ’em to 
terrify mankind at this rate. Written at the request of the 
orange-women. 1726. 

(Gildon, Charles.) Phaeton—A Tragedy — With some reflections 
on a book called, A Short View etc. 1698. 

*A letter to A. H. Esq. 1698. 

A letter to Mr. Congreve on his pretended amendments, &c., of 
Mr. Collier’s Short View etc. 1698. 

(Josiah Woodward?) A letter to a lady concerning the new play- 
house. 1706. 

*A new project for regulating the stage, by John Dennis and 
Charles Gildon. (A satire.) 1720. 

*Oldmixon, John. Reflections on the stage, and on Mr. Collier’s 
defense of the Short View. 1699. 

A collection of the Occasional Papers for the year 1708. (Contains 
a paper “Of Plays and Masquerades.’’) 1708. 


270 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


*Reflections on the stage, and on Mr. Collier’s defense of the 
Short View. 1699. 

*A refutation of the apology for the actors. 1703. 

A representation of the impiety and immorality of the English 
Stage, with reasons for putting a stop there to: and some 
questions addressed to those who frequent the play-house. 
1704. 

A seasonal apology for Mr. H(eide)g(ge)r. 1724. 

Settle, E. The Citty-ramble: or, A  play-house wedding. <A 
comedy. 1711. 

Some considerations about the danger of going to plays. In a 
letter to a friend. (In “The Occasional Paper’ Number 9.) 
1698. (Reprinted 1704). 

Some remarks upon Mr. Collier’s defense of his Short View of the 
English Stage, &c. In vindication of Mr. Congreve. In a 
letter to a friend. 1698. Some thoughts concerning the stage. 
In a letter to a lady. 1704. The stage acquitted. Being a full 
answer to Mr. Collier. 1699. The stage condemned. 1698. 

Stage Plays justly condemned. 1720. 

The stage vindicated: a satyr. By I. H. Esq. (In “ The Muses 
Mercury ” for July, 1707.) 

Vanbrugh, John. A short vindication of The Relapse and The 
Provoked Wife. 1698. 

(Gildon, Charles?) A vindication of the stage, with the usefulness 
and advantages of dramatic representations, in answer to Mr. 
Collier’s late book. 1698. | 

Visits from the shades: or, dialogues serious, comical, and political. 
Calculated for these times — Jo. Hains’ ghost and the reform- 
ing Mr. Collier. 


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